Dark Waters
by MrDrProfessor4
Summary: While out for some relaxation, Ruby and her friends stumble across a series of dark secrets connected to an unimaginable horror resting beneath the sea. Terror and madness transpire as they try to understand this new foe they're up against. Written to be accessible for those unfamiliar with the Cthulhu mythos.
1. Chapter 1: Bizarrchitecture

**I've had a streak of nightmares, so I felt like writing something less cheerful.**

 **This is primarily a RWBY fanfiction. You don't need to know much about** **H.P. Lovecraft** **to read this.**

 **This i** **s a hobby, this story is free, and if you don't like it, no one is forcing you to read it. Enjoy… or don't. That's up to you.**

* * *

Jaune Arc, dressed in a fine tux, leaned over the railing with a glass in hand, staring down at the tightly packed dance floor with what had come to be his usual expression of longing. Below were dozens of couples engaged in a slow ballroom dance to the classical tune played by some musicians nearby. Jaune's eyes went to Weiss, whom was dancing with a handsome stranger her age. She seemed as indifferent to him as she did her last partner. "Kinda' reminds you of the dance at Beacon a while back, eh?" Jaune said with a sigh, "Cept' we're on a luxury cruise and Weiss isn't sitting off to the side… and I'm not wearing a dress…"

"No punch bowl to hide behind too." Ruby said beside him. In contrast to Jaune and his tuxedo, she was dressed in the hoodie and boots that she often fought in. Her look of mild disinterest at the dance below brightened a little as she held her glass of milk to Jaune. "So to the…" her voice trailed off.

"The socially awkward?" Jaune chuckled and returned a smile. Sometimes it felt like talking to a boy instead of a girl with Ruby. "Alright." Jaune and Ruby tapped their wineglasses together, which were filled with root beer and milk respectively, and didn't bother taking a sip after pulling their arms back. "So why are you hanging out here?" Jaune asked quickly.

"I go where my team goes," Ruby said with a shrug, "You know I don't care for dancing, but Weiss insisted that we came. I mean, all eight of our tickets for this cruise were paid for by her father. I wasn't gonna' say 'no'." She looked over at her older sister Yang, whom moved with more energy and switched partners more frequently than anyone else on the dance floor. As full of energy as she always was, she probably just wanted an excuse to move. Blake merely watched from within the crowd that surrounded the dancers. Though she had gone as far as to put on a dress, Ruby couldn't see her dancing with anyone but Sun Wukong. He along with Neptune had returned to Haven Academy after the Vytal Festival ended.

"It's not like anyone had to choose dates to bring." Jaune said as he watched Weiss thoughtfully, "They're all just dancing with whoever… maybe I could…"

Ruby studied Jaune, not that it wasn't obvious what he was thinking. Everyone knew he had been crushing on Weiss since they first met but she always shot him down, harshly. "Uh… what about Pyrrha? I'm sure she'd like to dance with you."

"I asked her a minute ago, but she just cracked up and said she forgot to bring a dress."

"Oh…" Ruby looked away, trying to think of another alternative. Jaune was her friend and she didn't want to see him dismayed at getting rejected yet again. Ruby certainly wasn't going to do it herself. She couldn't dance and she hated dancing. Maybe she could talk her sister into it…

"You know what." Jaune said with a hint of forced courage, "I'm just gonna' go for it." He recoiled from the rail and headed for the staircase behind them as a worried Ruby looked on. Jaune took a deep breath when he reached the dance floor. "Okay, I don't need to fake my confidence. No ridiculous schemes, no pick up lines. Just talk to her." he murmured, brushing his hair and clearing his throat. He gently pushed through the crowd surrounding the dancers, stopping when he had a clear view of Weiss. Her gorgeous silver hair flowed and her long, fit legs practically shined as she and the man with her waltzed over the floor. Their pace slowed and the stranger tried to kiss her but he was stopped by a painful kick to the shin. Weiss was somewhat tomboyish, as her off-center ponytail suggested, but she still most certainly enjoyed being graceful. She turned away from her dance partner to find Jaune standing before her. "Hi!" Jaune said to her, nervously holding a hand forward, "So, Weiss… may I…" he tried to force a smile, awkwardly making it a little too wide, "May I have this dance?"

Weiss just stared back with a very unimpressed look on her face. "I've done enough dancing for one night." She walked passed him.

Ruby, still watching from the railing, shook her head. "At least she wasn't too mean to him this time." She was about to turn and walk away when she noticed someone else approach Jaune.

"Pyrrha?" Jaune sounded surprised.

"Jaune." Pyrrha said warmly. She was wearing a plain pink dress that dropped to the knees. It didn't match her long fiery red ponytail like the dress she had worn to the dance at Beacon. "Nora let me borrow this. I don't really care that it doesn't fit." she said half-laughing.

Jaune smiled and held a hand forward. "May I have this dance?" he asked in a fully relaxed, gleeful tone. Pyrrha happily took his hand.

Ruby smiled at them and turned to leave the room, as standing around watching for so long had made her restless. After passing through some fancy hallways and a double door she came out onto the main deck. It was nighttime right now, and it was completely pitch black above. Only the light through the windows made it possible to see. For about ten minutes she paced back and forth in the cool breeze.

"Something wrong?" came Yang's voice.

Ruby turned around to find her older sister staring at her from in front of the double door with a concerned look on her face. "I just needed some fresh air." Ruby said tiredly, "I wasn't expecting to find another masked super-villain but you never know." she added with a bit more energy.

"Well at least you're in better spirits than Blake." Yang said somberly.

Ruby sighed. "Let me guess: she's grumpy over 'wasting time' on this boat isn't she? We're only here Friday through Sunday. We-"

Yang brought her hand up to make a 'stop' motion. "That's the thing. She's actually been trying to relax but she just can't. She seemed tired yesterday, but now? I think she looks worse than when she was obsessing over Torchwick and the White Fang."

Ruby remembered that time when Blake wouldn't eat and barely slept. "I know from earlier today that she still eats. Does she still sleep? Our 'day offs' are too few and far between to pass up the extra rest."

"As far as I know, she does."

Blake and Weiss walked out from the double doors and approached them. "What could you two possibly be up to out here?" Weiss asked hotly.

Blake's eyes were sunken in and she looked absolutely miserable. The bow the hid her cat ears twitched a little. One could guess that being a faunus meant that she had good hearing. "I think they were talking about me." she said in a hoarse whisper.

Ruby and Yang turned to face them. "Blake," Yang began, "We went on this vacation because we were all exhausted, you most of all, but you don't seem to be getting any better. Just you. We're starting to worry."

"Well don't." Blake sighed with her head lowered. "Look, I'm not getting hung up over the Creatures of Grimm or the White Fang. It's just that every time I try to sleep, I keep getting these strange dreams."

Dreams? It was the last thing Ruby had expected. None of them had been brought low by something as trivial as a nightmare before. "What sort of dreams?" she asked.

Blake shrugged and shook her head. "I don't really remember much from them. There was this… place of stone… and I could hear… a voice, except it wasn't a voice. It's like a gross sensation you can interpret as a phrase. It kept saying, ph'nglui mglw'nafh…" She paused and tried to recall the rest of it.

Ruby recoiled upon hearing the strange words. They sounded pretty definite for what was supposed to be unintelligible gibberish. Atop of that, she would probably need a few minutes to practice the right guttural sounds to pronounce them correctly, and yet Blake, despite her fatigue, had done so expertly as if it were part of a language she was fluent in. "Some dream…" Ruby muttered.

"It's probably nothing." Weiss said with confidence, "You see, the left hemisphere of the brain handles things like logic, time, and reading." Her had waved back and forth for each trait she mentioned. "It all shuts down when you go to sleep. It's why time flies when you dream and why stupid stuff feels completely natural." She glared at Blake. "Are you positive that you're not stressing over anything?"

"I promise you, the only thing that's been bothering me for the past week is my lack of sleep." Blake said regretfully. Surprisingly she wasn't very grumpy for how tired she looked.

Ruby considered asking about the rest of the phrase Blake had heard in her dream, but decided not to make her think about it further. She turned to look out toward the ocean that surrounded the boat, but she could see nothing. She knew there was water and crashing waves out there but it looked as if there was nothing but an endless abyss, the edge of the world.

XXX

Ruby awoke with a big smile on her face feeling as rested as could be. She certainly hoped that her teammates had as good a nap as she did, especially Blake. She looked around the rest of their small room, which was only big enough for their four beds and luggage, bathroom aside. For the moment, the bathroom door was closed with the sounds of someone taking a shower in there. Seeing as how Weiss's bed was the only one that was empty, Ruby guessed it was her. Whatever the case, Ruby climbed out of bed to get dressed and it was perhaps due to her stirring that Yang and later Blake woke up as well. "So Blake, how are you feeling?" Ruby asked, feeling relieved that her friend had broken her streak of sleepless nights. Ruby's smile faded when she got a better look at Blake's face. She didn't look as tired as she were before, but she looked… tormented. That was the best word she could think of to describe it. Judging by her soaked bed sheets she had been sweating, a lot.

"I just had the worst, _worst_ dream ever… of all time!" Blake growled as she sat upright.

"Hey… uh… at least you… dreamed, right?" Yang said with forced optimism.

"I guess." Blake said as she fell to her back and lied down again. "I think I was just so sleepy that I couldn't wake from it this time."

Ruby didn't know what to say. Last time Blake was like this, she was working herself to a self-destructive capacity. It wasn't like she could tell her to stop having nightmares. "Do you remember any of it?" asked Ruby, "Any sounds or images fresh in your mind?"

"All I remember is wanting to wake up so badly, and I can't even remember why." Blake grimaced. She got out of bed and stretched. "If it bothered me _that_ much, I'd say it's a blessing that I don't remember." She let out a long groan of relief as she loosened her joints up.

XXX

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang departed from their room not a moment after they were all dressed in their standard outfits and ready for the day ahead. Ruby didn't want to waste any time, and although she didn't bring that cumbersome 'Best Day Ever Activities' binder, she was certain that they could have the best of days now that Blake wasn't feeling so beat. Finding relaxation on their brief vacation wasn't just about rest, but also cutting loose.

Their day started and proceeded to be as carefree as they had hoped. They met up with Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren in the room next to theirs then headed to the dining area for breakfast. The food was fresh and tasted very good, especially for being all-you-can-eat. Nora catapulted small bits of food from her spoon at Yang whom would catch it in her mouth, a game they first started back at the mess hall in Beacon, though they reluctantly stopped when Weiss demanded so. Jaune seemed to have gotten used to the up-and-down motions of the ship on the tide, a big improvement over his constant vomiting from when they first got on board yesterday. Only Blake didn't have a smile on her face, and though maintaining a stoic expression was normal for her, looking utterly depressed was not. Ruby's blissful mood was somewhat shaken when Yang privately told her that Blake had been mumbling in her sleep like she were 'trying to summon the forces of darkness into their room' all last night. After finishing breakfast, the two teams split up to do as they wished. Ruby and Yang wanted to play in the swimming pool on the top deck, Ruby in her plain-looking one-piece bathing suit and Yang in her sexy two-piece. It was only partially cloudy and the sun was shining through so it seemed like an ideal activity. Weiss and Blake however weren't interested, and so they went their own way. Apparently there was some karaoke contest going on and Weiss knew that she had a great singing voice. Blake simply wasn't concerned with doing anything and just took walks around the ship to clear her head. When it was lunch time they all returned to the ship's dining room where they quickly found Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren again. The two teams sat at opposite sides of a rectangular table facing each other.

" _Third_ place?" Jaune said leaning forward in disbelief, "I never pictured you getting anything but first in a singing contest, and definitely not third."

"Third place is… _respectable_ considering there were sixty entries." Weiss said irritably with her head held high. She was obviously trying very hard to pretend that it didn't bother her. "Second place was a timid boy that didn't think he could sing well. He was actually pretty good, no self-confidence though."

"Who placed first?" Jaune asked.

"Some dumb pretty boy with the voice of a claw on a chalkboard." Weiss sneered, "He only won because the judges were his parents. He even had the audacity to say he could 'show me how to do it right'."

"Sounds like you've had an eventful day so far." Yang said.

"It would be nicer if we spend it together…" Ruby whispered to herself regretfully. The glass chandeliers above each table gave a rattling noise as the ship suddenly shuttered.

"Odd." Pyrrha said as she looked around wonderingly.

"So what did the two of you do?" Jaune asked Ruby and Yang.

"Eh, nothing major." Yang replied, "We were just playing at the pool."

Ruby gave a half-shamed, half-amused laugh. "I wouldn't call breaking the diving board 'just playing'. They kicked us out for that."

Yang pointed her index and pinky fingers up making the 'horns' hand gesture. "Totally worth it." she said with a grin. The room was starting to get noisy from all the people hurrying towards the doors and out onto the deck. Many of them had cameras.

"Guys?" Blake butted in.

"Yeah Blake?" Ruby said in good spirits. She thought it was nice to see that her friend was returning to her aloof, mellow self again.

"I think the ship's engines just stopped," Blake said pointing to the crowd massing along the railing overlooking the side of the ship, "and I think they're looking at the reason why." Teams RWBY and JNPR made brief glances at each other before getting up and scurrying toward the deck. The sky had turned to a foreboding orange color. Odd, considering how it was only the late afternoon.

Ruby climbed onto the railing, leaned over, and looked straight out into the vast ocean. "I don't see anything." she said.

"It's toward the front of the ship, you dunce." Weiss said. She was also bent over the railing, but her attention was turned to the direction the ship had been heading like everyone else.

Ruby turned her head but wasn't sure what to make of what she saw. It was very far off but she could make out the beginning of land… no, it was a massive stone wall… no it was the edge of a city made of stone. It stretched to the left and right further than the eye could see and was entirely a rotting brown color. "So is this a part of the cruise I didn't know about?"

"The engines were cut off in an instant." Pyrrha said, shaking her head with unease, "I don't think this stop was planned."

"That place looks huge, but it doesn't appear on the map." Ren said looking at a brochure. It was perhaps the first time Ruby had heard him speak since they got on this boat, being the one person that was quieter than Blake.

"You know…" Jaune whispered to Ruby, "There's an air transport kept under that big blue tarp near the back of the ship. If we could talk to the ship's captain, you know, tell him we're hunters-"

"Jaune, I'd rather we stayed on the ship." Pyrrha butted in.

"Huh? Why's that?" Jaune replied

Pyrrha just stared back with a worried look, trying to come up with a good answer. "Call it a bad feeling. I just don't like the look of that place."

"What? But Pyrrha-"

" _Our team_ will see to getting a closer look at that place." Blake said boldly. She glared at Ruby. "Aren't we?"

"Uh…" Ruby was taken aback by Blake's fierce stare. It didn't look like she would take no for an answer, and she seemed determined enough to just steal the air transport Jaune had mentioned if the ship's captain turned them down. "Yeah." Ruby said with her usual cheerfulness returning, "Team RWBY will check it out!"

XXX

Ruby felt the transport slow as it drew closer to its destination. To be exact, the transport was a Bullhead, like the one Torchwick got away on the first time she had seen him. The cruise ship's captain had been more than happy to let the four huntresses investigate the strange area in front of the ship, as he also wanted to know what in blazes it was supposed to be. Ruby was less curious about that and more worried about Blake. Why was this such a big deal to her friend?

"We're touching down now. Just be back before sundown." the Bullhead's pilot shouted from the cockpit. The Bullhead landed onto a flat area that was something like an oversized sidewalk with the ocean on one side and the strange structures on the other. Not the structures nor the 'shores' of this crusted rock could possibly have been natural.

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang leapt off the side of the Bullhead and onto the ground. The ground was putrid with the carcasses of decaying fish and other less describable things protruding from the nasty mounds of mud. It was clear now that the rotting brown color of this place was not the stone, but rather the thin layer of dead moss that covered much of it, likely grown while it had been underwater for a long time. The idea that the ocean might rise again wasn't too much of a concern, as there was a good twenty-foot drop from here to the ocean behind them. They weren't planning to stay for very long.

"It's not too wet, maybe a little soggy." Weiss said tapping her shoe on the moss, "This place must have risen to the surface no more than four days ago."

Blake raised an eyebrow at that statement. "Four days…" she whispered to herself.

Ruby tried to move but the orange sky above and dead brown moss below made her feel dizzy. She fell to her knees and found herself staring at a cluster of strange plants growing from the ground. They had a tan leathery texture and were shaped like cucumbers standing upright. There were more like them growing along the walls ahead. "Mushrooms are truffles, sprouts are Brussels. What are these supposed to be?" Ruby mumbled. She grabbed the photo camera that had been hanging from her neck on its strap like a necklace and took a picture.

"They're no seaweed I've ever seen." Yang said uncomfortably.

Ruby looked up at the structures before her and decided that this most certainly was a city, but the architecture was more bizarre than anything she ever could have dreamed up. No two buildings looked the same and all of them were slanted in angles that didn't make sense. "To… adventure?" she said, trying in vain to sound optimistic. Team RWBY ventured though one of the gaps between the structures and moved deeper into the city. It was hard to shake the feeling that this place was… alive… and that it knew they were here.

"Maybe we should ready our weapons, just in case." Blake said as she brought out her weapon, a short blade that could turn into a chain scythe called the Gambol Shroud.

"Don't be silly, Blake." Weiss said, "Do you honestly expect to find Grimm here?"

Blake shrugged and slowly put her weapon away. The city's walls rose up high giving a claustrophobic feeling like being trapped. There were other paths to take but no matter which way the huntresses went, the scene would go between long narrow pathways and wide open expanses with no pattern, much like a maze only without the dead ends. To make things worse, everything was shaped so strangely that it felt disorienting just to walk by it.

"The guys that made this place must really hate right angles." Yang had said. At the center of the open areas were tall monoliths with disturbing hieroglyphics carved all over them. It was difficult to make sense of any of them, but each seemed to depict some kind of squid or octopus symbol that was either being worshiped by men or consuming them. Come to think of it, while some of the smaller characters resembled humans, there were others that were clearly meant to represent something else.

"This is creepier than Jaune's smile yesterday." Weiss said as a chill went down her spine, "This place is so confusing. The way it's all shaped is just… _wrong_."

Ruby put a hand on Weiss's shoulder. "We'll figure it out. If this place was made by intelligent beings, their design has to follow rules." Ruby looked around, feeling doubtful of her own words. "Rules don't have to make sense, they just have to be consistent." she added.

"This all fits…" Blake said as she stared up at one of the monoliths, "My nightmares from the past four days, the familiar stone, these symbols. I've been dreaming about this place."

Ruby turned to speak to Blake but could only stare at her. She wanted to ask how that could be possible, but she could just as easily point at anything and ask the same question. The team continued on for some time with Yang in front and Ruby taking countless pictures of everything. Blake didn't seem as interested in this place since the monoliths and Weiss was the most disgusted by what they had been seeing, still their curiosity carried them forward.

"Guaaah!" Yang yelped as she nearly stumbled. Even though the ground ahead looked flat, she slowly moved forward with her hands out like a clumsy girl in a pitch-dark room. "This feels weird!"

"Yang? What are you-" Ruby began, but fell over when she tried to follow. She, Weiss, and Blake stared at the path ahead with mouths hanging half-open. The pathway seemed to twist with the walls becoming tilted floors and ceilings, something they had seen before but nowhere near to this extent. There was still definitely a sky, but it was hard to judge if it was 'up'. The three of them tried to catch up to Yang but it took a minute to get used to the increasingly freakish geometry. Weiss looked like she was going to throw up. It didn't seem like anything magical was at work and Ruby could tell when she closed her eyes that the laws of physics were no different here. The architecture here was just so different that the human mind had trouble processing it.

"It can't be of this, or any sane world." Weiss said as they came to a clearing. Before them was a cavernous area with a kaleidoscope of structures they couldn't put names to, though they could at least recognize doorways, so that was something. It was hard to be sure which way was up, down, left, or right. Even their view of the sky seemed… sideways, as impossible as that sounded.

"Whoa! Whoa! Vertigo!" Ruby shouted, with her hands on her head. Yang moved ahead of her and started up a staircase, or rather an unrecognizable structure that seemed to serve the function of a staircase. From this angle it looked like she were walking along the ceiling even though she had moved straight ahead. Ruby carefully put one foot forward but tripped again over some masonry. Lying there she inspected the spot that caused the mishap and discovered an angle that was acute but behaved as if it were obtuse. By all rights this city of optical illusions should have fascinated her, but for some reason she was more horrified than astonished. It wasn't the strange otherness that this place evoked. It wasn't the possibility of getting lost and remaining trapped here until the ocean claimed them. It wasn't even that horrible rotting smell. She didn't know how but she could feel _something_ of indescribable enormity from deeper within the city, the heart of the city, and it also stretched to endless bounds below. It wasn't anything she could see, hear, or smell, but she was sure that she could close her eyes, spin around, stop, and then point straight at it. It was like she were smelling it with her mind instead of any of the five senses.

"This place just keeps getting weirder and weirder." Yang said with an uncharacteristic fear in her voice.

"Not weirder. _Worse_." Ruby said just as nervously. Every bad detail of this nightmare corpse-city was indeed getting worse the further they went in. She had never been this unnerved in her life. It felt like there were a million eyes watching them, and if the foul odor of fish had been bad before, it was maddening now. She could only imagine how it was for Blake, whom as a faunus boasted the strongest sense of smell in the group.

"I think that's enough." Weiss said anxiously, "We should start heading back."

Yang nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we've been exploring this place for about three hours. I'd say it's time."

"Hold on." Blake said and pointed to one of the buildings ahead. It was the biggest one in the area and the grand staircase, if it could be called that, leading up to the huge doorway suggested that it was of some importance. Through the entrance they could see a number of small objects littering the floor. Were those books? "That one over there. I'd like to take a look in there before we go."

Ruby shrugged and said, "Well, it's right in front of us. It couldn't hurt." Yang and Weiss looked at each other hoping that the other would object, but neither spoke a word. Given that this area was an assortment of platforms complemented by bottomless pits, they had to utilize parkour to get around. A few times they would fall in different directions when jumping from the same ledge, or at least it looked that way. Everything about this place shattered their fundamental understanding of the world.

"This ring of the city must have been built for an aristocracy or as a center of worship." Weiss told them along the way, "It would explain why the 'bizarrchitecture' is so exaggerated here."

Ruby thought of the monoliths from before. "I'd go with the latter." she said, "The buildings around here seem more like temples than mansions." Upon reaching the building they wanted to check, they found that the stuff covering the floor were indeed books, but any they picked up and opened were too soggy and ruined for them to make out its contents.

"And this must have been the grand library." Blake said. Unlike nearly everything else they had seen since getting off the Bullhead, they actually could put a name to what this place was. The interior was pretty much what one would expect a grand library would look like, root and decay aside. Huge shelves, some filled and some empty, stretched nearly a mile ahead and hundreds of feet up.

"We should check if any are still intact." Ruby ordered the team, "Maybe we'll find a history book." The four of them spread out to look through the piles of leather-bound books. Further ahead there were mountains. For a while they just checked through one after another but were met only with smears caused by water damage.

"Every last one of these smelly books are unreadable." Weiss said as she tossed another aside.

"Check the ones on the shelves. Maybe those ones are in better shape." said Blake.

"Nope, they're washed-up too." said Ruby.

Weiss sighed and continued the routine of picking up a book, opening it, then tossing it. Eventually she came to one that she couldn't help but stare at for a while. It was no less damaged, but there was something familiar about it. She looked from it, to the last one she discarded, then around at all the ones surrounding her. Her expression lit up as if something dawned on her. "Ladies, Ruby," she said, implying that Ruby was her own category, "haven't you noticed anything odd about these books?"

"What are you talking about?" Ruby asked as she flipped through another book, "They're the only normal things we've seen so far."

"I don't know about that," Weiss said, "but compare the one you're holding to another one, any other one."

Ruby looked at the one she held and only saw a book. She look at a nearby pile of them and only saw more books. "Uh… what am I supposed to be seeing?" she asked.

Weiss rolled her eyes and continued. "Every last one of them is the same size, the same thickness, the same everything. They're all copies." She knelt down, laid two books on the floor, and opened both of them to their first pages. They were smeared in different ways, but it was clear enough that it was the exact same text that had been smeared.

"So they filled their library with five-hundred thousand of the same book?" Yang said dumbfounded, "They must really have wanted it to be a best-seller."

"I don't think this is a library at all, Yang. I think the purpose of this place was to make imitations of…" She pointed to the one book that seemed different from the rest, sitting on a pedestal at the far end of the building. " _That_." The four of them approached the unique book and stared at it. The cover was not made of the leathery material that defined the others, but of a thin, solid, dark-green stone… or was it a metal? They couldn't decide what kind of material it was. They could however tell that the rims and the octopus crest on the top were made of gold. Blake was the only one willing to touch the accursed thing. She opened it and slowly flipped through the pages, each one displaying satanic engravings that depicted unpleasant creatures, designs, and rituals. The pages were thin and flexible but definitely not made of paper, and in spite of their perfect condition, the runic letters were indecipherable to the huntresses.

"We should get this to Ozpin." Blake said as she closed the book, "If there's anyone familiar with this language, he'll call them up."

"You mean like an archeology guy?" Ruby asked, scratching her head.

"I think we should leave it." Weiss quickly objected.

"Leave it?" Blake faced Weiss with a look of hostility. "We traveled for hours to get here, and by tomorrow this will all be under water again. You're seriously suggesting that we leave empty-handed?"

"Yes. Let the crazy here _remain_ here." Weiss responded harshly.

"We know next to nothing about this place!" Blake shouted back, "This book may-"

"That's exactly why we shouldn't be touching it! It might be dangerous!"

"Right, so you suspect a _book_ could be dangerous?!"

"After all we've seen here, would it really be a stretch if it grew limbs and attacked us?"

"Right, this is coming from the person who called me silly for suggesting that we ready our weapons."

"That was different!"

Ruby looked from Blake to Weiss as they butted heads. This city had to be the greatest discovery in generations, but was it better to leave it in the past? Weiss had always been one to support a rational explanation. Seeing her do the exact opposite now spoke volumes of how badly she felt about this. Then again, if this place was so dangerous it would pay to know more about it, and Blake was right about this being their only chance at grabbing the book. Ruby moved between her friends to break up their argument. "We'll take the book," she said sharply, "and if anything bad happens, we can handle it."

Weiss eyed Myrtenaster, the rapier that hung from her waist. Sure she dressed like a princess, but she most certainly was not weak-kneed. They _could_ handle it. She gave a long sigh and said, "Alright, fine."

Ruby took the book and stuffed it into the bag she had been carrying over her shoulder. Her blood went cold when she saw something at the corner of her eye. There was someone standing in the doorway watching them, though it was too tall to be a man. Ruby gasped as she turned to look, but whoever had been there was now gone.

"What?! What is it?!" Yang cried as she swung around to face the entrance.

Ruby stared long and hard at the doorway. "I really hope it was my imagination."

XXX

Team RWBY left the library and began heading back the way they came. Without any words between them, they just quickened to a pace suited for outrunning something. After navigating over the platforms and taking the narrow pathway that should have led to the not-quite-as-confusing maze, they found themselves in a large clearing they didn't recognize.

"I think we took a wrong turn…" Yang said. Her last word 'turn' echoed and took a while to fade out.

This area was by far the largest they had seen yet, like a cliff side overlooking a chasm of unimaginable bounds. There was a clear, open view of the dark-orange sky like that of a stadium, the wind was incredibly strong here, and… the huntresses froze with their eyes wide at what they saw. It towered over everything else like an excessively wide skyscraper and its base lay further down the chasm than they could see. It reminded them of a great barn-door, or at least they all felt that it was a door due to the ornate lintel, threshold, and jambs around it, though it lay slantwise like an outside cellar-door. It was carved with astonishingly great detail, strongly resembling the front cover of the strange book they had taken, even including that squid symbol at the center. They simply didn't notice the door right away because they had taken it for a huge wall. The most jarring detail about it was of course its size. If one hundred of the cruise ship they had sailed here on were all lined up, one in front of the other, it still would not match the width of the door.

"You could fit half the kingdom of Vale through that!" Weiss said incredulously.

Ruby brought up her camera and took a number of pictures of the door. Even at this distance, it was too big to fit into a single shot. "Yang, you got the compass. Which way to the Bullhead?" she asked, eager to leave. She knew it could be no coincidence that the thing she had been 'feeling' with her mind was behind that door. She absolutely did not want to find out what it was. The book was enough.

"Umm, let me find it real quick." Yang said as she felt around at her pockets.

Ruby found herself tapping her heels rapidly in anxiousness. The sky was beginning to darken. "C'mon, we really gotta' go!" she wailed. The sense of that thing behind the door suddenly intensified tenfold and began pulsing. "Ahh!" she squeaked as she put both hands to her head and felt it pounding. As nauseating as her headache was, it seemed to be much worse for Yang, even more so for Weiss, but it was by far the most horrific for Blake.

Blake collapsed. "As if the smell wasn't bad enough!" she cried, curled up on the ground. Suddenly as quickly as it had come, the sensation suddenly just stopped. The huntresses took a minute to get up and collect themselves. "That felt as bad as… my dreams." Blake said as soon as she were able to stand.

"On the bright side," Weiss said as she wiped away a tear, "I know I'm not going mad if you all felt that as well."

"Maybe we've all gone mad." Yang said gravely. She had meant for that to be a joke, but it did not come out right.

"Yang, the compass?" asked Ruby.

"Oh, sorry sis." Yang pulled out a compass and stared down at it. "The Bullhead should be…" She raised a hand to point. "That w-" Her eyes widened when she found herself pointing straight at a living breathing creature in front of her, the likes of which she had never seen before. It was a mess of decaying flesh with arms and legs of different lengths and tentacles in place of a face. "Gals?" Yang began flabbergasted, "Tell me I'm not the only one seeing th-"

The creature suddenly screamed at them like a Banshee, not in fear, not in anger, but in excitement. The huntresses covered theirs ears and couldn't hear their own screams of agony. Their eardrums continued getting obliterated until Blake struck the creature with her chain scythe from where she stood, horizontally chopping it in two and shutting it up.

"My nose, my brain, my ears! I've had enough!" Weiss shrieked bitterly.

"That definitely was not a Grimm." Ruby said approaching the dismembered creature. Getting a better look at it, she was sure that it was not whatever had been watching them back at what they took for a library. "Well at least it went down-" The creature's upper half sprang up and tackled her, knocking her onto her back with it over her. "Ah! Get it off!" she screamed as she tried to hold its 'face' back. Touching it with her bare hands seemed to sting like acid. Yang quickly tore the creature off of her and threw it. It landed into yet another creature like it and they seemed to quickly _grow into each other_ , combining into a new whole.

Suddenly the entire damned city came alive with howling as herds of those mystery creatures emerged from every conceivable place like the Pied Piper had set his flute to the 'gross monster' setting. Team RWBY frantically unsheathed their weapons and put their backs together. Ruby's palms were red and it hurt to grip Crescent Rose, but that was the last thing on her mind.

"Uh, maybe we should give them their book back?" Weiss said nervously.

"They're here for _us_. Take my word for it." Blake hissed. The others wordlessly guessed that her assumption had come from her dreams.

Monsters lunged at team RWBY from all sides whom retaliated with more ferocity than they had ever shown to a pack of Grimm. They knew only how to fight Grimm, maybe a little on people, but for these creatures they could only take what they knew and apply it harder. The flesh of these creatures was easily cut, and there was no cutting tool Ruby would rather have than Crescent Rose, but any she or Blake sliced up would recombine, mix with another, or continue as separate entities. Yang was having a much harder time. Her fingers were horribly singed after fruitlessly punching just one and was forced to use only her gauntlet's ranged shotgun blasts, which at best just knocked them over for a brief moment. Only Weiss seemed to be faring well. Though stabbing a creature with her rapier was like harmlessly stabbing jello, her dust attacks of fire and ice actually forced them back.

The worst thing about these creatures was how unpredictable they were, much unlike Grimm which were at least consistent. Whenever Ruby thought she found a pattern, she would notice another creature that contradicted it. No two ever looked exactly alike. Some were tall and thin, others wide and bulky. Some moved on all-fours, some were bipedal. Gills, feelers, fins, tentacles; each one seemed unique. In the distance there were even ones larger than any Death Stalker or Nevermore they had ever encountered. The only universal trait Ruby could attribute to them, other than fitting the bill for the label 'monster', was the unimaginable stench as of a thousand open graves they gave off when punctured, bashed, or chopped in half. The smell would somehow become worse whenever Weiss set one on fire. The longer they fought, the more certain Ruby was of at least one more trait. A strange wart, though never found on the same spot, marked each and every one of them. Were those… human faces?

Recognizing that they would be soon be overwhelmed, Ruby and Blake chopped through the creatures in the direction of their extraction point as Yang and Weiss followed and kept their attackers back, their roles clearly defined with few words needed. Cutting the creatures apart didn't kill them but it sure made them easier to get by. Team RWBY forced their way through using every last shotgun shell, sniper rifle round, and bit of dust they had until finally they broke out from the football-field-sized mosh pit that had formed around them and then ran like they never had before. Despite their sensible handling of the situation so far, a look of sheer panic was seen on each of their faces. There had to be at least a million of those _things_ chasing after them.

The enormous door began to emit a loud noise, drowning out even the deafening howls of the monsters. Team RWBY looked at the door as they ran and noticed that it was slowly giving inward. It was… opening! The racket finally stopped when it had fully opened revealing complete darkness. The odor rising from the newly opened depths was _by far_ the worst to slither through their noses since they got here, and that was saying a lot. Ruby's eyes watered and willpower alone kept her from fainting. She could hear the nasty, slopping sound of something huge coming, something so immense that it had to _duck through_ the vast doorway to come out. None of the scared young girls dared to look at it.

Team RWBY escaped back into the narrow alleyways of the city's outer ring, which were now thick with monsters. Weiss and Yang were completely unable to fight now that they had run out of dust and shotgun shells, but the group was at least agile enough to avoid getting cornered. They continued to flee, their fear not allowing their fatigue to slow them down. As was typical of the city, the way back seemed different from before and the distance felt shorter. As they passed through another intersection, huge 'vines' as thick as buses grew almost instantly behind Ruby, Blake, and Yang leaving Weiss stuck behind it.

"Ruby!" Weiss screamed.

"Weiss?" Ruby turned back to face the barrier of 'vines' that clearly had intentionally separated them. It was more of that strange leathery plant they had seen since landing here and it stretched up as high as the stone walls it stood between. Ruby raised Crescent Rose to hack away at it but could only cut a few inches into it. Oddly, blood seeped out from the shallow cuts. These things weren't planets, they were recycled _flesh and bone_ …

"We got more coming." Blake cautioned. Hordes of the grotesque creatures could be seen coming down the other pathways that led to here. They were closing in like water flowing down a pipe.

Ruby peeked through a thin gap where the wall of flesh met the wall of stone and could see Weiss at the other side doing the same. "Weiss!" Ruby shouted again, "Can you scale over this with your glyphs or something?"

"It doesn't work like that, I'd need to-" Weiss was cut off when a monster seemed to jump her from behind. Sounds of a struggle could be heard.

"They're getting closer…" Yang said restlessly, "I hate to say it, but we'd be done for if they surround us again!" It was unfortunately true. They were exhausted, out of everything, and had miles between them and where the Bullhead was hopefully still waiting for them. They could not afford to get trapped again.

The constant shrieking and howling still echoed all around, but the other side of the flesh wall suddenly became silent, implying that the tussle had declared a victor. Thankfully it was Weiss that peeked through the gap again. "Ruby, I'll look for a way around and catch up!"

"But…" Ruby started to protest, but Yang pulled her by the arm and ran. Ruby stumbled backwards, still looking at the wall of flesh, then finally turned to flee with her sister and Blake. "We just left her to die!" Ruby shouted bitterly.

" _We_ would have died if we stayed a second longer." Yang yelled back, "We have to trust that she can take care of herself!" Ruby gritted her teeth at her, but could say nothing with all the 'locals' so close behind. From then on none of them thought, they just 'did'. Earlier today they had been enjoying a long awaited time of relaxation, and then out of the blue came the prospect that one of their teammates was dead. Things had gotten so bad so quickly.

"Curse my curiosity!" Blake spat. Those were the only words any of them uttered for a while.

Ruby turned her head to look over her right shoulder as lightning flashed. Through the clouds behind them she could see the silhouette of a creature more vast than any mountain for just a brief moment. It stood up like a man, but it had dragon-like wings and an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers. Was that what came out of the door? Ruby wiped away tears forming from her right eye and looked forward again upon hearing the sound of crashing waves. They were getting close. Though they had spent three hours walking into the city, traveling back took less than one at the rapid pace they kept. They zoomed by the familiar stone monoliths and finally… no, _miraculously_ found view of the ocean with the Bullhead still where it landed hours ago. Even more divine was the bewildered pilot sitting in the cockpit, staring in wonder of what all the bizarre shrieking was about. Ruby, Blake, and Yang came to the side of the transport where they could get on and just… hesitated.

"We _can't_ leave yet." Ruby declared with a great deal of emphasis on 'can't'. Blake and Yang only nodded. The three of them stared back at the way they had come. Howling and screeching as if from every rabid animal in the world echoed from those tainted paths, but Weiss never appeared.

Perhaps in growing unease, the Bullhead's pilot fired up the transport's engines. Blake banged her fist on the window. "If you take off we'll shoot you down!" she shouted at the pilot. Though an empty threat, as none of them had any ammo left, making such a threat was a bit extreme. Maybe she just felt responsible for what was transpiring. The Bullhead's pilot damn near suffered a panic attack when the city's inhabitants spilled out from every opening in sight.

"Just give her a few minutes!" Ruby shouted as she readied Crescent Rose, "I know she'll come around! She has too!" The creatures came upon them and the huntresses struck back with everything they had left, however in vain. Even Yang fought at the expense of ruining her fingers more, not caring as long as it meant they could hold out longer. A wave of despair came when the Bullhead lifted off the ground. The girls looked at each other and ultimately logic won out over emotion. After seeing this, they knew there was no way to stop the pilot from taking off. They turned around and boarded the transport. Ruby took one last look at the city as the Bullhead rose.

Yang put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Ruby." she said regretfully.

Ruby gasped when she spotted Weiss sprinting around a corner with another river of monsters chasing her. Her hair was now dropped down and no longer in a ponytail. Her clothes were torn and dirty but her white figure still stood out from the rotting green and brown around her. She leapt to the air, creating a glyph under herself to jump off of, and propelled herself straight into the passenger section of the Bullhead barely before its thrusters kicked in. Ruby and Yang caught her as she slid over the floor and nearly fell out the other side. The transport was moving at full speed for the cruise ship now. The nightmare corpse-city and the sounds of howling grew more and more distant as the sun set. Nighttime had begun.

Team RWBY did not celebrate, hug, or even smile at each other. It felt like an eternity had passed since they had been somewhere that made sense, a Bullhead interior in this case. Ruby sat on her bottom with a ghastly look on her face as she stared at her trembling hands. Yang sat beside her seeming just as shaken. Blake looked depressed and tormented sitting there with her back against the wall. Weiss however seemed very relaxed, probably just happy to be here right now. She was the only one standing, though still breathing hard like the rest of them. Ruby did not dare question the good fortune and instead silently prayed that they would never see anything like this again.

Much to their horror, the madness they uncovered would follow them home… for they had brought _two_ horrible things back with them.

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **I had to find some excuse to have them out at sea!**


	2. Chapter 2: Infectious Insight

**Not a lot of people read the first chapter** **…**

 **I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given how shipping fics about fan-preferred couples is what** **everyone comes here** **to see** **,** **not to mention I'm just making this up as I go. I'm just gonna keep going for my own enjoyment until the lack of readers gets to me.** **Maybe I'll surprise myself.** **I** _ **refuse**_ **to just recycle the events of RWBY Volume One with a slight twist like everyone else does!  
**

 **Thanks a million to those whom** _ **have**_ **taken the time to read this.**

* * *

Since returning to the cruise ship, the first thing Team RWBY did was head straight to their room and retire. The ship's captain did not bother them. He was otherwise occupied with unintelligible rambling from the Bullhead pilot, whom had seemed to be driven mad by what he had experienced, and to think that he had seen the least of the strange city by remaining on the Bullhead. It was not a pleasant thought and likely why the captain was giving the girls some space. The girls found their room as they had left it, though it quickly began to reek of the smell they carried in with them. The four of them were filthy and that horrible odor had strongly attached itself to each of them, especially to Weiss. It caused quite a number of people to shy away from them on their way here. Spraying the room with perfume was the last thing on their mind however. They might have been safe now, but that _place_ they had escaped from, as well as everything they had seen in it, was still out there. Simply knowing of it made all the difference, especially of that _thing_ that had come out of the gigantic door. They never actually looked at it but somehow it still haunted them.

Ruby sat on her bed staring at her open hands. They had finally stopped trembling but were now covered in bandages, as were Yang's fingers. Yang was on her bed too, her feet on the floor as she lay on her back staring at the ceiling. Blake was sitting on the floor with her back resting against the wall, thoroughly studying the pages of the book they had discovered in that horrible city. More than once she had to put it down and collect herself before she could continue looking through it again. Weiss leaned against the opposite wall standing with her arms folded under her breasts looking between each of her teammates with a blank expression. Not a word had passed between any of them since the sun had fallen, just looks and gestures. Weiss moved from the wall and stood over Blake to stare down at the pages of the sinister tome. It was her that finally broke the silence. "It's a fascinating piece isn't it?" she remarked.

Blake glared at Weiss. She did of course always glare at people but there was a particular sharpness to this one. "First you want to leave it behind, now you're fascinated by it?" she said.

Weiss shrugged. "It's not like we can return it now." she said with a calmness, "What's done is done."

Ruby looked the tome. The cover, however ominous, was an impressively carved work of art. Part of her wanted to just throw it into the sea, but… "We've got to look into it after all the trouble we went through to get it." she said aloud, mostly for herself.

"Of course we do." Weiss said, looking at Ruby as she slowly approached her next. She had both hands on her hips and she walked with a self-assurance that somehow seemed off to the others. "Imagine the secrets it could hold. Knowledge and things so far beyond the term that we could only dream of it." she added.

"Yeah, I'm afraid of that." Ruby replied grimly.

"Fear can be a cue for caution, yes, but you should never let it hold you back." Weiss said wagging a finger at her.

"That's an odd thing to say considering what we've just been through." Ruby said dismissively.

Weiss gave a reluctant nod and responded with, "Sure the locals were less than hospitable, but you have to respect what they were capable of. If we harnessed their abilities we could, for example, invent a way to instantly mend broken bones."

Yang sat up with an eyebrow raised and said, "Your opinion of the unknown changed awfully quick."

Weiss looked to Yang and chuckled. "Perhaps, but our visit to that city just made me realize a few things about people." Weiss replied.

"And that would be…" Yang's voice trailed off.

"That the oldest and strongest emotion is fear," Weiss said briskly, "and the oldest and strongest variety…" she made a provoking smile, "is that of the unknown."

"Rightfully so, I'd say." said Yang.

"Oh good huntress, where would society be if fear always trumped curiosity?" Weiss said half-laughing.

Ruby eyed Weiss curiously. "Excuse me?"

Weiss clapped her hands together. "Enough of this. We should get ourselves cleaned up." she said and looked down at her outfit. Between the four of them, her's was by far the dirtiest and most torn up. "Do any of you mind if I go first?" she quickly added.

"Nope.", "I don't.", "I'm good." Ruby, Blake, and Yang said respectively. Weiss politely nodded, went into the bathroom, and closed the door.

"Have either of you seen her act that way before?" Yang asked with her voice lowered.

"Could you blame her if she has a screw loose?" Blake said still looking through the heinous book. She looked appalled, bordering on horrified, by whatever image she was staring at now.

"I know I couldn't." Ruby said almost hysterically and pointed both fingers at herself, "I know _I've_ never acted _this way_ before!"

Yang suddenly looked flabbergasted. "Uh, sis? What happened to your eye?" she asked pointing a finger.

"Huh? What do you…" Ruby cut off to rub her right eye. Come to think of it, it _had_ been feeling a little itchy. She checked the side of her hand where she rubbed her eye and saw blood. She was shedding tears of blood?

Blake, having set the book aside, fished through Weiss's bag and pulled out a hand mirror. "You should see it for yourself." she said, handing the mirror to Ruby. "I've never seen an eye look so bloodshot."

"Gimme that!" Ruby cried, grabbing the mirror with both hands and checking her reflection in a panic. What should have been the white part of her right eye was now wholly blood-red. The veins around her right eye were bulging and looked ready to pop out of her skin. It looked like it should've been painful but it felt no more than 'itchy'. Her left eye seemed normal at least, though that didn't bring her much comfort.

"You oughta' get that looked at." Yang said sounding concerned, "Maybe a spec from one of those 'monster thingys' got flung into it while we were fighting."

Ruby looked at the open palm of her bandaged left hand while her right still held the mirror. "If it was that, it would've stung, badly." she said. She blinked, causing red tears to run down her right cheek.

XXX

The ship's interior had filled up in the past few hours since the sun had set, not just because it was cold out on the deck but also because the puzzling landmass was no longer visible. In the ship's ballroom Jaune and Pyrrha, both fancily dressed, laughed together as they sat down at a table to catch their breaths. The room was pretty much the same as it had been yesterday, included with similar crowds, dancers, and musicians.

"Dang Jaune, you sure know how to dance." Pyrrha said, half-laughing and half-panting, "I mean, I know how to dance too, but you're something else."

Jaune scratched the back of his head modestly. "Heh, thanks but… you know, seven sisters. I've had a lot of practice." he said with a grin. Oddly he wasn't nearly as tired as his battle-tested, athletic friend.

"If you're okay with it, maybe you could teach me what you know." Pyrrha asked somewhat shyly.

Jaune looked mildly surprised by the suggestion. "I guess that would be fair with you teaching me how to fight and all." he said still grinning. It seemed backwards for a girl to teach a guy how to fight and a guy to teach a girl how to dance, maybe it was fate's sense of humor, but he was nonetheless happy with the way things were and wouldn't trade it for anything. He reached out to place his palm over Pyrrha's hand on the table. "How about we start your first listen now?" he asked.

"Maybe some other time, sorry. You've run me a bit ragged tonight." Pyrrha said regretfully. She did indeed look tired.

"Helloooooooo!" came Nora's voice. Jaune turned to look and found Nora walking toward them with her hand raised in the air looking chipper as usual. She quickly lowered her arm before reaching them. "Hehe, I hope I'm not interrupting anything." she said glancing at how Jaune had his hand on Pyrrha's, "Anyways, I sorta' lost my key to our room and… uh… there's something in there I need to get." She stared sideways and as she spoke her smile steadily faded to a look someone would make when pretending to be innocent. "Can I borrow either of your keys?"

"How about we come with you instead?" Pyrrha asked as she got up, "I'm about ready to turn in for the night anyways." She turned to Jaune and asked, "You coming, Jaune?"

"Eh, I think I'll stay. I'm still too awake for bed." Jaune said with an easygoing shrug, "You sure we couldn't just give her a key so you can stay too, Pyrrha?"

"I'm beat, Jaune. Sorry." Pyrrha replied. She and Nora walked off.

"It's fine." Jaune said as he leaned back with his arms behind his head. When the girls were too far to hear him he added, "The night can't last forever."

"You're telling me," Nora began saying to Pyrrha, "that the four-times winner of the Mistral regional tournament is burnt out from less than two hours of dancing and-" Her voice faded into the bustling crowd.

Jaune looked around the ballroom. Most everyone here were adults in their thirties or forties. There weren't a lot of people his age on the ship, though he did spot someone standing alone on the sides who was, a girl to be exact, and a very pretty girl at that. Glittering diamonds hung from her ears and she wore a gorgeous snow-white dress much like what he would imagine Weiss to wear to a… what a moment, was that Weiss? Jaune looked a little harder at the girl's face and had a hard time recognizing it. That was definitely Weiss's face but there was a lovely, mellow smile on it that seemed completely out of place. Jaune got up and walked over to her. "Weiss? I didn't realize you were back yet." he said to her.

"Huh?" Weiss gave a confused stare that lasted a few seconds. "Oh." Her lovely smile returned. "Yes, we returned about an hour ago." she said.

Jaune found himself speechless. Why would Weiss give him a questioning look instead of an indifferent or unimpressed one? Did she not recognize him at first? Then again, she never really noticed him in the past, so he shouldn't have been so surprised. "How are your teammates? You all came back, right?" he asked.

"Of course we did. We're all fine." Weiss said with serenity, "That's sweet of you, worrying about us like that."

Jaune blushed in surprise. "Uh… yeah." he said scratching the back of his head, "So what did you girls find? What kind of place was it?"

Weiss chuckled. "No words do it justice. You'll have some idea of the 'kind of place it was' when you see what we brought back with us." she said rather cryptically.

"You took something from there?" Jaune asked looking surprised.

Weiss leaned closer to him looking him in the eyes… flirtatiously? "I'll show you it if you be a good boy." she whispered uncharacteristically tenderly. Sure she had always stood up straight with the demeanor of a rich girl or princess that thought highly of herself, but right now she also seemed to be carrying herself with a certain delicateness that just wasn't her.

"Weiss, are you… feeling okay?" Jaune blurted out. Staring into those big icy-blue eyes made any curiosities of the strange landmass just up and vanish.

"More than okay." Weiss said blissfully, "It's been a long time since I've felt so… _alive_." She made a mischievous smile.

"That's… uh… nice." Jaune managed to say. He could only stare with his mouth half-open with this being the most attention Weiss had ever given him. While staring he noticed something else different about her and tilted over to the side to get a better look at her ponytail. Normally she kept it on the side of her head, disrupting the symmetry of her outfit. One could guess that she did it in contempt of her restrictive upbringing or maybe to show that she wasn't fragile, probably both, but right now she had her ponytail neatly on the back of her head.

"Well?" Weiss said as she held her hand to Jaune the way a girl would at an elegant baroque dance, "Aren't you going to ask me to dance?"

Jaune stared at Weiss's hand in disbelief. Whatever she saw on that strange landmass must have made her go crazy, but _Jaune_ had to be the one losing his mind if he was going to just stand here and question this. Slowly his incredulous frown turned into a huge smile. "Oh yeah! Definitely!" he said taking her hand.

The entire room took notice of the young couple taking their place on the dance floor. They started in a slow waltz to match the other dancers but gradually changed their pace to suit a faster style. As Jaune was familiar with about every form of dancing, he was able to wordlessly follow Weiss's lead into an energetic tango. The musicians seemed to take a liking to them and switched what they were playing to accommodate them. Jaune and Weiss moved around the dance floor together, their steps matching perfectly and their eyes remaining locked on the other's. People around them, some smiling and some with looks of awe, backed away to give them space and before long it was just the two of them dancing with the whole room as their audience. Deciding to give them a show, Jaune tried some flashier moves which Weiss followed as if of the same mind. Jaune twirled Weiss like a top, caught her arm, and continued seamlessly. Weiss kicked her leg straight up and held it there for a few seconds, showing off her flexibility. Jaune threw Weiss up by her waist then lowered her, holding her an inch above the ground with her looking up at him. That last move stirred a few 'ohs' and 'ahs' from their viewers. The dance finally ended with Weiss resting her back against Jaune's chest, the side of her head resting over his shoulder and their lips almost touching. The musicians stopped playing and the entire ballroom erupted with clapping, the crowd surrounding the dance floor as well as those leaning over the railings. Together, Jaune bowed and Weiss curtsied.

"I'll bet they think we practiced all that." Jaune said, smiling as he looked around at their fans, "You know," he looked to Weiss, "I had no idea you were so good at dancing."

"I've had several lifetimes to develop the skill." Weiss said smiling with her head held high.

Jaune laughed. That seemed like a rather odd exaggeration. "So you do it often then." he remarked.

"It's been a very, very long time since my last dance, but _this_ amount of experience can shine through any rust." Weiss said grinning.

XXX

All of team RWBY had finished taking showers and getting a change of clothes, though Ruby remained in the bathroom standing in front of the mirror to examine her revolting eye. A towel soaked in cold water, eye drops, cucumber slices; she tried all sorts of treatments but none of them made any difference. If anything, it just got worse as time went on. In spite of how awful it looked, she could still see quite clearly with it. In fact she could see _far_ better with it than with her left eye. It didn't even itch anymore. At some point Pyrrha and Nora came by to say hello after having noticed light coming from under the room's door. They recoiled when they saw Ruby's eye, though they didn't bring it up to avoid being rude. Noting that Blake was reading and Yang was asleep on her bed, Nora wondered as to what happened to Weiss. "She put on a dress and headed to the ballroom." Ruby told her in a tired, flat voice. Her guess was that Weiss wanted to forget about the weirdly-shaped, monster-infested, evil city they had just explored but she kept that thought to herself. She didn't want to talk, let alone think about that place at all.

"Last I saw, Jaune was still hanging out in the ballroom, hopefully not getting the cold shoulder right now." said Nora. She smiled trying to lighten the mood, but Ruby and Blake continued to look miserable. Even Yang, whom was asleep, didn't look so peaceful with her head tossing and turning so much. Pyrrha and Nora them wished them a good night and left, the first of the two could be overheard in the hallway saying that she had never seen Ruby look so depressed.

"Fighting Grimm never got to me like this." Ruby murmured with her forehead against the door. A short time later, she and Blake turned the lights off and got into bed. Sleep came easily but it never lasted. Things worse than what they saw in that evil city tormented their dreams, though Ruby could never recall specifics after waking up. The third time she woke was because her own vomit had filled her mouth, forcing her to rush to the bathroom and empty it into the toilet. Upon climbing back into bed she noticed Yang sitting upright looking at her.

"Can't sleep either?" Yang said to her.

"You're getting the dreams too." Ruby said, not phrasing it as a question.

"I was thinking it's cause we're sharing the room with that freaky book," Yang said, gesturing to the object in question that laid on the floor between her and Blake's beds, "but Blake started getting these nightmares days before we set foot on that… eh… zoo of animals pulled inside-out by their butt-holes."

Ruby might have laughed if she were in a better mood. "Maybe something out there is trying to talk to us." she said tiredly.

"Talk to us, or any number of other things." Yang said with a shrug, "Whatever's causing this might just be stretching its legs for all we know."

Ruby sighed. "It's too bad I can't remember what it is I even dream about." she said as she sat up with her legs criss-crossed, "I'm betting you can't either."

"There is _one_ thing I remember." Yang said in a daunting tone, "Ph'nglui…"

"Mglw'nafh…" Ruby said joining in.

"Wgah'nagl fhtagn." they said together. For a while they just stared at each other. It had long since become obvious that whatever they were experiencing were not dreams. What was this mantra supposed to mean? What was the point of it?

"That thing behind the giant door…" Ruby said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah well, it did blow our minds before stepping out." Yang said before falling onto her back, "Poking at our dreams wouldn't be much of a stretch."

Ruby huffed, deciding that she didn't want to talk about this anymore. She looked around the room and was surprised by how well she could see in the dark. Blake was asleep for the moment, grinding her teeth a bit loudly. Weiss's bed however remained empty. "Weiss still isn't back yet?" said Ruby.

"Apparently." Yang muttered.

Ruby pondered for a moment before saying, "I have a hard time buying that she's any less tired than us. Maybe something's up?"

"It's a boat. She's not going anywhere." Yang said with a huge yawn, "We'll probably find her passed out at the bar in the morning."

"Umm, seventeen is under the legal drinking-"

"I wouldn't let that stop me after what we saw." Yang groaned and covered her face with one of her pillows.

Ruby sighed again and laid down for a while. The day's events had left her tired beyond belief, so it seemed necessary to suffer through the 'bad dreams' for at least one night. On the other hand, as if the dreams weren't enough, her growing concern for Weiss was keeping her awake too. Groaning, she climbed out of bed, put on her boots and hoodie over her pajamas, and went out the door. Hopefully some closure on her friend's strange behavior would make her ease up.

XXX

Out on the deck, Jaune and Weiss were intimately kissing and making out with their arms around each other, the latter had her back against the railing. It was a picture Jaune still had trouble believing. He had known Weiss for a long time and for all that time she had never so much as given him a chance, not even earlier this same day, but right now she was throwing herself at him. It had to be a dream. One typically saw what they desired most in their dreams, and if that was the case, he wanted to never wake up. Following another kiss, he pulled his head back to stare into Weiss's eyes. It seemed like there was a different person behind them, but a genuine person was there nonetheless. "Aren't you getting a little cold?" Jaune asked, starting to feel chilly from the breeze.

"Not _cold_ ," Weiss said sounding frisky, "but we can head inside if you like," her hand slid down Jaune's chest to something… lower, "maybe find a place where no one will bother us." she whispered softly.

Jaune felt his legs turn to jelly. In TV shows guys always turned down beautiful girls for no reason, but that was hilariously unrealistic. Pretty much no young man ever refused such an enticement, especially when it was from whom he considered to be the most gorgeous girl he had ever laid eyes on. He wordlessly nodded as Weiss took his arm and they headed toward the door to the ship's interior. A short ways away along the railing, Ruby stood in pitch-darkness staring at them with a dumbfounded look on her face. Jaune of course didn't see her in the dark, but surprisingly Weiss turned her head and seemed to wink directly at her before going through the door. It was like Weiss was able to see in the dark as well as Ruby could with her right eye.

Ruby blinked, trying to process what she just saw. Pyrrha might have been disheartened by the sight, not that she and Jaune were officially dating or anything, but those two had gotten pretty close and about everyone in teams RWBY and JNPR were under the impression that Jaune had given up on his first crush. The prospect that Weiss had suddenly taking a liking to him wasn't exactly a bad thing, but the instant flip-flop was… unsettling. "I guess madness really is contagious," Ruby said bitterly, "and how could we not catch any after visiting the grand central station of it?" With only her left eye open, she turned to look out toward the ocean and saw nothing. She may as well have had both eyes closed. Looking with only her right, she could see the ocean as clear as if it were day time. She had gained insight on what was never meant for mortal eyes, and it would cost her.

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **No, there will be no lemon content.**


	3. Chapter 3: Snooping

**Let me make it perfectly clear that in spite of the cruelty** **I will be showing to these characters** **, I'm a big fan of RWBY. I'm simply trying to be faithful to the Lovecraft formula** **…** **well, the themes of insanity and hopelessness anyways** **. Lovecraft was also an advocate of subtle terror and that doesn't mesh with the action RWBY is known for.** **Nonetheless, we're talking about a sub-genre not known for happy endings. No matter what happens here, the characters will live on in their source material, just as Monty Oum will always live on in our hearts.**

* * *

Ruby awoke in the morning with a feeling of dread and worry she had never known before. Her right eye was sealed shut by dried up blood, though it was easily rubbed and chipped off. Blake and Yang were already awake, though they remained quiet, probably feeling the same way she was. She slid, or rather fell out of bed and went straight to the bathroom mirror to check on her right eye. She was no longer crying blood from it and the surrounding veins had stopped swelling but it was still bloodshot and now the pupil was smeared like ink on wet paper. She groaned in frustration. Not that she would wish this on her teammates, but why was this happening only to her and not them? Why her right eye but not her left?

"Cheer up, good huntress. You can still see with it." came Weiss's voice.

Ruby jumped in surprise and turned to find her teammate watching her from the bathroom doorway. She hadn't noticed that the heiress was in the room until now. Weiss looked to be wide-awake and in a good mood. As her normal outfit had been torn beyond repair, she now wore what was basically her secondary outfit, a white short-skirted wool coat with black edging and thigh-high, high-heel boots. Seeing her ponytail on the back of her head still took some getting used to. "Yeah, I can." Ruby said with sigh, "In fact I can see _better_ with it for some reason."

"Then embrace the change. There's no use in fighting it." Weiss told her in honeyed words. She turned and left the doorway.

Ruby looked at her right eye in the mirror again. Sure it looked gross, but seeing in the dark better than even a faunus had its uses. "I guess it's not completely bad." she muttered.

Ruby, Blake, and Yang got dressed, as Weiss already was, then the four of them grabbed their luggage and left the room to meet with team JNPR in the hallway. "Holy crap! What happened to your eye?!" was Jaune's reaction. Ruby didn't give a response. She just stood there looking like all the color was drained out of her. "Umm… sorry," Jaune added in a quick apology, "I didn't mean to-"

"That's okay." Ruby said in a harsh tone, "I'd be weirded out if it wasn't the first thing you saw." She turned and went down the hallway with her teammates following close behind. Weiss exchanged suggestive, flirty looks with Jaune which threw Pyrrha into confusion.

"I know you had a rough night," Yang said to her sister, "we all did, but that was uncalled for."

Blake nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Weiss is supposed to be rude to him, not you." she said.

Ruby sighed. "Look, it just sort of… came out." she murmured. She put her hood up to keep anyone else from seeing her face, specifically that blasted right eye.

Jaune looked on at them. Besides maybe Blake, they had been acting completely different from the girls he had come to know. He wasn't complaining about Weiss, but he had never seen Ruby this grouchy before, or at all for that matter. He liked her better she was nice, quirky, and fun to be around. "I wonder what's gotten into them." Jaune said shaking his head. His hand went to his stomach upon a sudden but brief jolt of pain there.

XXX

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang walked together along Vale's harbor with the cruise ship docked behind them. Ruby watched Weiss bitterly from the corner of her eye. Weiss seemed to be studying every lamppost, building, and vehicle as if she had never seen them before. Blake remained quiet and looked depressed. Yang just looked incredibly tired.

"We still have the rest of the day off." Weiss said pleasantly, "We can get a bite to eat, check out a shop, watch a movie-"

"Why have you been acting like that?!" Ruby abruptly shouted. Some pedestrians across the street stopped to look at them.

Weiss didn't frown, look surprised, or even blink. Her cheerful expression stayed exactly the same. "Like what?" she asked, "I'm just trying to enjoy myself while it lasts."

Ruby made a fierce look, the kind she only used for Grimm. "What were you doing last night? You can't tell me you weren't tired." she said.

"Calm down Ruby. You're making a scene." Yang said meekly.

Weiss gave a composed response. "I was just spending time with a friend. Jaune's a very good dancer you know," she smiled mischievously, "among other things. What's so strange about that?"

"It's not strange as in crazy, but as in a completely different person." Ruby said.

"Ruby," Blake butted in, "if anyone's acting different, it's you."

Ruby exhaled like an angry bull. "Argh! Lets just get back to Beacon already." she grumbled and continued walking.

"You sure you don't want to enjoy the day here?" Weiss asked behind her.

"I'd much rather talk to Ozpin about what we found." Ruby said crabbily. She looked over at the bag slung over her shoulder which contained the photos she had taken and the book.

"Actually Ruby," Yang said, grabbing her sister's shoulder and stopping her, "I think you should get your eye looked at first."

"It's not bleeding and I can see fine with it." Ruby said defiantly.

"We don't know what your condition is." Yang said with growing concern, "It'll probably get worse if you don't-"

Ruby shoved her away. "You're not my mom!" she growled. She froze and took a deep breath. "Sorry, Yang. I don't know why I'm so cranky today."

Yang put an arm around her sister and slowly guided her forward. "Don't apologize," Yang said softly, "let's just get you to an eye clinic or something."

"Okay…" Ruby groaned. Since she woke up, she had been feeling abnormally aggressive. When she looked upon even the random pedestrians around her, people whom she had never seen before, she felt an unbearable urge to tear their heads off for some reason.

XXX

The doctor's reaction to Ruby's eye was more or less dropping his clipboard while frozen like a statue with his mouth dropped wide-open. He shook his head constantly when he examined it closer. The flashlight he shined into it was indeed bright but it didn't feel blinding to Ruby, nor did it make her eye water. "The pupil doesn't contract or expand to anything." the doctor said in bewilderment. Ruby was then told to look at a LogMAR chart across the room, a board with rows of letter that grew smaller the further down they went, and she could easily read even the letters at the very bottom. As if interpreting that as a challenge, the doctor brought out a seemingly blank strip of paper from his desk, taped it to the wall, and dared Ruby to read it. She shrugged then quickly read from across the room what the doctor needed to use a magnifying glass to read up close. Blake and Yang watched looking amazed. Weiss on the other hand seemed to find this entertaining.

"So what's wrong with her, doc?" Yang asked.

The doctor put his palm to his face. "Do I even need to mention that I've never seen this before?" he said.

"Doesn't matter," Ruby rudely interjected, "just tell me why my eye looks like it's melting."

"Melting? It certainly isn't melting." the doctor said as he began to pace back and forth, "It's developing and improving itself! I couldn't imagine how or why."

"Could you check for a chemical or something that shouldn't be there?" Ruby asked.

"A foreign substance?" the doctor grimaced, "Not unless you're okay with losing your eye so it can be dissected. Whatever spectacular catalyst caused this would've dissolved into it by this stage."

"So is there _anything_ you can do?" Yang asked.

The doctor took a pondering gesture. "Well, I got these reverse-mutating eye drops that can-" His expression instantly changed to an aggravated one. "Of course there's nothing I can do! If I were you, I'd show that eye to the authorities."

The girls left the clinic looking dissatisfied. Ruby fought the oddly strong urge to rudely tell Yang that they should've expected this. No normal doctor would know anything about that place they had found in the ocean, let alone anything that came from it. If there was an expert on her condition, Ozpin could call him up.

XXX

Ozpin's office was a large, cylindrical room with many windows, each with a fantastic view of the land far below. No decor or embellishments adorned the room at all, though a system of intricate cogs, gears, and wheels constantly moved above and within the walls. The room had something of a Victorian steampunk aesthetic, antique but advanced. Ozpin himself was a man to be reckoned with. He was a capable strategist, a natural leader, and he had gained much wisdom from a wealth of experience few could match, but even he was taken aback by the photos he rapidly flipped through. He lifted an eyebrow when he saw pictures of the city's inner ring, he lifted both when he saw pictures of the massive door, and he paused for a while over the ones showing hoards of the unknown monsters, his expression unreadable. Finally he laid the stack of photos onto his desk. "It's a troubling discovery." he said in his firm, stoic voice, "The four kingdoms of Remnant already have their hands full with the Creatures of Grimm. We wouldn't last against two adversaries."

"The newly discovered monsters are the harder of the two to kill, if I do say so myself." Blake said sorely.

"Yes," Weiss said in more of a charmed tone, "it's a wonder why they keep to R'lyeh when there's nothing that can stop them."

Ruby eyed Weiss. R'lyeh? Where had she gotten that name from? Ruby nearly spoke up, but instead shrugged and decided that she must not have been paying attention earlier. So what if Weiss made up a name anyways?

Ozpin looked to the the satanic, dark-green, stone-like, tome with golden rims and a cephalopod crest. "And then there's this." he said as he opened it and flipped the pages, "I am under the impression that this is a book of rituals."

"So… any idea what group of people built the city?" Ruby asked, doing her best to keep her unusual ill temper in check.

"I'm afraid not." Ozpin said rather bleakly.

"But surely someone must have seen something like it before." Blake said with a look of disappointment, "I mean, that part of the ocean isn't exactly that far from Vale."

Ozpin nodded. "Indeed. Ships have sailed over it for centuries without a clue of what lay beneath them." he said with boldness, "It would hardly surprise me if there were more cities like it, and not just under water. Much of Remnant remains unexplored because of the Grimm."

Yang groaned. "So even _you_ don't know anything?" she said with a worried look at Ruby's eye. At this rate, they might never understand what was up with it.

"I know little more than how a location this size could emerge from the ocean so quickly without the sea level dropping or causing a tsunami." Ozpin said ruefully, "Many kingdoms have risen and fallen in the past, but this architecture doesn't match any that we know of." His eyes went from the satanic book to one of the photos of the monoliths on his desk. "Not one image in this book or on these monoliths depict Grimm in any way. It's quite possible, even likely, that this civilization existed before Grimm even walked the earth." he added.

"I think it's obvious why they vanished," Blake said, "those monsters wiped them out."

Ruby shivered in remembrance of the faces on those creatures, those all-too-human faces… hanging lifelessly off an arm or the back while the rest of the body functioned without it. "I don't think so…" she said fearfully, "I think those creatures used to _be_ that civilization before they went all…" She put her hands up in front of her chin and wiggled her fingers around. For a while no one said anything.

"Well, at least you're sounding like yourself again." Yang said, trying to sound positive.

Ruby's expression suddenly lit up with astonishment. A sickness that turns people into monsters? Her mutating eye? They disturbingly fit together too well. Then again, whatever was up with her eye didn't seem to be spreading… probably.

"More speculation is pointless." Blake said impatiently, "Let's just put this behind us and take it easy."

"Yeah, sounds good." Yang said as the four of them started towards the door, "That vacation was more tiring than what we were taking a vacation from."

"Hold on," Ozpin said stopping them, "I may have _one_ lead." He hit a few buttons on the holographic computer projected from his desk and put up a map of Remnant onto the screen. "Here." He pointed to a spot in the middle of nowhere southwest of Vale. "There is a temple in these parts that historians are still debating the origins of. Few ever come near it because of superstition, in fact no recorded settlement has ever existed within a day's journey of it." he said in an unreadable tone.

"But I thought you said…" Ruby stuttered before collecting herself, "So you think this temple was made by the same people?"

Ozpin subtly shook his head. "It does not in any way resemble the city you discovered out at sea, not even as a descendant." he said firmly, "However, the hieroglyphics and statues at its entrance seem to pay tribute to the same squid deity."

Ruby's eyes darkened. "Tell me everything," she demanded with a sternness that was unlike her, "please." she added more humbly.

"There isn't much more to tell, I'm afraid." Ozpin answered, "No one has ever seen the interior. A thick stone door seals it off and there is no obvious way to open it. Between a strong presence of Grimm and being so far from any city, it is impractical to bring anything that might be used to break through it." He took a sip from his coffee. "Impractical… but certainly not impossible."

"So you can get us a transport and whatever else we'd need for this expedition." Weiss said with a vibe of satisfaction, "How soon can you organize it?"

Ozpin studied her for a moment. "Don't be so hasty. I have confidence in your team's combat skills, but for the moment I question your mental states." Ozpin said. His face remained blank while Weiss lifted an eyebrow at him. It looked like they had began a staring contest. "I feel that this mission would be better suited for a team of fully realized huntsmen." Ozpin added.

"But…" Ruby whined, "but we're the closest there is to experts on this kind of thing."

"Ruby, it'll make things worse." Yang said with a hand on her sister's shoulder, "We're bound to find something terrible in there too."

Ruby shrugged her sister's hand off. "We'd be better off than a group that hasn't been through what we have." Ruby hissed rather unpleasantly.

"Blake?" Yang said, turning to the dark-haired faunas, "Help me out here."

Blake shook her head. "I'm with Ruby on this one. This whole thing is too big to ignore." she said.

"Yes, and choosing to ignore it won't make it go away." Weiss added in.

Ruby put her hands on her hips and said, "Well, looks like the votes tally at three to one."

Yang made a frustrated grunt. "Alright, fine." she said.

Ozpin clasped his hands together as he studied the girls. "If I've seen one pattern with the four of you," he said to them, "it's that when you aim for something, you'll pursue it with or without my permission. I wouldn't tolerate it if it didn't come from your resolve to right wrongs, instead of arrogance or entitlement." He gave Ruby a hard look. "Ms. Rose, is this really that important to you?" he asked, "Consider your sister's position before you answer."

Ruby looked at Yang then to Ozpin. She took a deep breath before giving her answer, "This new breed of monsters can and probably will try their tentacles on Vale and the other kingdoms. I'd sleep better if we were better prepared and knew more about them. How to stop them, what they want, how they came to be…"

For a while Ozpin just stared at her. "It's settled then." he finally said.

"So… we get to go on this mission?" Ruby asked.

" _Only_ if you agree to do whatever the huntsman that you will be accompanying tells you." Ozpin said.

"This huntsman wouldn't happen to be professor Oobleck, would he?" Blake asked with a cringey look on her face, "His 'expertise in history' and all."

Ozpin gave a discreet smile. "Archeology has always been one of Bartholomew's hobbies." he said.

XXX

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang ate dinner in the mess hall. Ruby and Weiss sat on one side of the rectangular table while Blake and Yang sat across from them. Each hung their head low as they gave each other the silent treatment, save for Weiss, whom had claimed that she wasn't hungry, which was odd considering that it seemed like she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday. Ruby spat a strawberry back onto her plate with a loud "Pleh". Everything just tasted different to her today. Blake at least still had her appetite. Maybe she was just better conditioned for dealing with bad moods like these?

Yang suddenly slammed a fist onto the table. "I still say we should sit this one out!" she shouted harshly.

Ruby leaned forward. "You wanted to 'get mixed up in as many crazy adventures as you could', right?" she replied spitefully, "Well you've got one, and now you want no part of it?"

"I had Grimm and criminals in mind when I said all that!" Yang shouted, "This is completely different! This 'adventure' will break us! It'll break you!"

Ruby gritted her teeth, feeling angrier than she reasonably should have been. "If you don't want to go so much, stay here. We can do this without you." she said, summoning all the self-control she could muster.

"I'm not letting you go without me, not with the condition you're in." Yang said, shaking her head.

"Condition?" Ruby said and opened her right eye wider with her fingers, "This eye isn't holding me back. I can still fight as well as I always have, maybe even better."

"I'm not talking about your weed-smoking eye!" Yang said heatedly, "You haven't been yourself lately. If this place is anything like the last, there wont be much of us left to come back."

"Since you haven't noticed, danger plays a big part in being a huntress!"

"This goes far beyond just simple danger!"

"Yeah, it's also _important_ , so we're not gonna' chicken out on it!"

"We don't have to stop! We need to at least slow down!"

"Yeah, slow down, just like with your mother?!" Ruby spat. As she spoke, it started to sound like there was a second voice talking along with her. "How has that approach worked out for you? Oh right, you still haven't found out a damned thing!" Yang gasped in bewildered disgust, whether at what she said or the voice she spoke in, it wasn't clear. It was probably both.

Blake cautiously spoke up, "Ruby, I think Yang has a p-"

With one hand, Ruby viciously stabbed her fork into the steak on her plate making a loud 'gutting' noise, cutting Blake off. "Stay out of this!" she growled.

"That's quite enough." Weiss said as if hardly noticing them, still maintaining that out-of-place smile. She looked between Ruby and Yang. "You two are of the same flesh and blood, are you not?"

Ruby's enraged expression slowly crumbled into a horrified one as the realization of her nasty behavior came crashing down on her. She had never yelled at her sister like this before. "Why did I say that?" she murmured to herself.

"It's that place." said Yang, " _Look_ what it did to us, what it's _doing_ to us!"

Ruby buried her face into her palms in remorse and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I…" she began to say, "I don't have an appetite today." She got up and hurried off.

"Ruby!" Yang called after her.

Blake however kept her eyes on Weiss. "'Of the same flesh and blood'? Who talks like that?"

XXX

Ruby found herself alone in the dormitory bathroom standing in front of one of the mirrors. She looked up at her reflection, at that eye. Her breathing grew heavier and her hands shook. "Nrrgh!" she snarled upon throwing a punch at the mirror, shattering it to pieces. She fell to her knees, pulling on her hair with one hand and pounding the floor with the other. She just felt so angry. "She's right. That place… it twisted us… it ruined us." she gibbered to herself. Against her better judgment, she _still_ felt the need to carry forward, much like how Blake wanted to investigate the evil city no matter what it led to. It's what curiosity does to a person. It's why a frightened child covers his eyes but then peeks between his fingers. The need to know. Suddenly she felt someone kneel beside her and embrace her. Yang?

"Shhhhh…" Weiss whispered soothingly, "there there, huntress." Her fingers ran down Ruby's hair and stroked her cheek. "Things may be different, but they will be better." Weiss said. It sounded for a moment like there was a second voice talking along with her. "Trust me."

Ruby hugged her back. Another time, this probably would have seemed awkward, but something about Weiss felt… good, and Ruby just wanted to listen to anything she had to tell her. "But… what I said to Yang…" she said.

"You think that's unforgivable? You two are quite close." Weiss said as she moved her face closer, their noses almost touching, "This venture will bring you closer. It will bring us _all_ into a perfect unity."

Ruby blushed. She couldn't think straight. "Al… alright." she stuttered.

"Now relax. You'll have an exhausting day tomorrow." Weiss said to her as she let go and helped her stand.

"But… my dreams. I can't-"

"There will be no dreams for you, not anymore." Weiss said with a finger on Ruby's lips, "Tonight you will sleep well."

By the next day, it seemed that Weiss had been correct. Unlike how badly she had slept yesterday, Ruby awoke from her dreamless sleep feeling as rested as could be. Blake and Yang however didn't seem rested at all.

XXX

Team RWBY came to one of Beacon's air pads where a transport was waiting for them. Ruby, Blake, and Yang wore their standard outfits and Weiss wore her alternate outfit. They approached Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck, whom was writing on a clipboard before turning to see them. "Ah yes, a pleasure to be working with you all again." he said lightning fast, "Hopefully we won't have to 'fight for our lives' this time." He pointed the eraser-end of his pencil at a stack of crates nearby. "Kindly move those supplies onto the transport, ladies. Do not dally." He turned and headed toward the Bullhead.

Yang knew she was the physically strongest of the group, and so she grabbed one of the crates right away, lifting it onto her shoulder with noticeable effort. She was taken aback when Ruby picked up the rest of the crates in a stack by herself without any difficulty. "Uh, Ruby?" Yang said with her eyes widened.

"What?" Ruby said with a casual shrug, "These aren't that heavy."

Yang bounced the crate on her shoulder a little and frowned. It most certainly was heavy. "Whatever you say, sis." she said.

It wasn't much longer before they boarded the transport and took off. Blake and Yang conversed while Ruby sat alone quietly. Her now-wary eyes fell upon Weiss, whom was standing near her. This trip would take a few hours. Why not start a conversation? There was after all something she was itching to ask about. "Weiss," Ruby began, "I can't believe I haven't asked this yet, but… back at that evil place, what did you do after we got separated? How did you make it out?"

Weiss made a happy grin as if she had heard something funny. Was she… blushing? "I wandered for an eternity, searching for something that wasn't there. That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."

Ruby squinted at her. What kind of nonsensical answer was that supposed to be? Still, it didn't feel like gibberish. Like a book written a language she didn't understand, she could tell that it was a thoughtful response even if she didn't get it. "Gah!" She jerked the moment she felt someone grab her by the shoulder.

"What's up?" Yang asked, "You were looking real shaky."

"I'm fine." Ruby said as she brushed off Yang's hand, "Stop worrying about me already, sis." Ruby tilted her gaze to the floor, feeling rested but no less uneasy.

XXX

To be continued…


	4. Chapter 4: Annoying Echoes of The Past

The view below the transport changed from the tops of trees to barren dirt in an instant as it flew into a large clearing. After slowing down to a still hover, team RWBY followed by Dr. Oobleck dropped down onto the dirt, just in front of their destination. In plain sight at the end of the clearing on the face of a hill was a large stone building resembling a twisted temple or cathedral that stood four stories high and was just as wide. A wide stone-tiled pathway, lined on each side with statues, led to a large door that took up the whole side of the structure that faced them.

"Curious. The trees and grass just stop past this point." Oobleck quickly said, being the 'motor mouth' he usually was, "The tree branches facing this clearing even seem to be withering."

Ruby looked around the building's perimeter and noticed that green did not grow any closer than twenty meters from it. Further in was just dead, dried up dirt. "Well, I'd be shocked if that's the weirdest thing we'll see." she said with a shrug. She, Blake, and Yang readied their weapons, but Weiss, whom kept Myrtenaster in its sheath, was the first to walk forward.

Dr. Oobleck bent down to recover samples of the soil and put them into a small plastic bag. He looked up to see that the girls had already gone on ahead. "Now now, ladies!" he called after them, "I doubt the superstitions come from hot air! It's better that we practice caution!"

"Don't worry, Mr. Oobleck. We'll stay in each other's sight." Ruby said without looking back. She studied the statues closely as she slowly walked between them. Every one of them was of the same monster which only a diseased fancy could conceive: the caricature of an octopus, a dragon, and a human. Come to think of it, they resembled the colossal being that Ruby was sure had come out from that enormous door two days ago.

"Whatever culture made this sure loved squid-gargoyles." Yang said with distaste.

"They aren't gargoyles. They're all statues of Cthulhu, the great old one." Weiss said ahead of them. She walked without looking at anything as if she were already familiar with the place.

"Ca… Ceth… Cathullu?" Yang struggled to pronounce.

Weiss stopped and turned around to speak directly at Yang. "It's two syllables, not three. Put your tongue to roof of your mouth and cough it out. 'Cthu-lhu'." She smiled and shook her head. "Hmph. The name was never intended for mortal vocal cords."

Yang scratched her head, not knowing what to think. "Well… either way these people seemed to believe that kissing his ass would get them somewhere." she said.

"You're not wrong about that." Weiss said before turning and walking toward the structure again. Ruby eyed her for a moment, before her gaze slowly fell upon the temple grounds around them again. She hadn't seen a single spec of moss since she got here. The dark-brown, almost-black stone of this place was perfectly polished. In fact, everything was remarkably well-kept and untouched.

"It's definitely creepy, but not disorienting." Blake remarked.

"Naturally." Weiss said, "This temple was made by mortal hands." The girls came before the door and looked up upon its grandeur. It was in the shape of a grand cathedral's wide double doors, though there was no split in its center, leaving question of how it was meant to be opened. Every inch of it was etched with all sorts of frightful symbols. In the middle of the door, at eye level from the ground, was a golden circle the size of a dinner plate. Surrounding the circle were eight rings, making it look much like a ten-foot golden archery target. What seemed to be discontinued lines and unfinished symbols were all over it. Weiss reached out to slide and rotate the rings.

"Miss Schnee," Oobleck said as he caught up to them, "I'll have to ask you to stop touching that. You couldn't possibly have the faintest idea-"

The last ring rotated into place, forming a clear image of the same cephalopod crest seen on the scary tome they showed to Ozpin. Weiss pushed the center which gave in like an oversized button. The large door thundered as it briefly shook and then slowly sank down into the ground. Noise from unseen gears within the walls and below the floor echoed until the door fell completely open with a loud ' _bang_!'. Silence and a pitch-dark hallway awaited them.

"How did you…" was all Yang could say.

"I had a few faint ideas." Weiss said. She started to walk forward.

"Hold on!" Ruby shouted as she got in Weiss's way, holding Crescent Rose at the ready with an angry look on her face, "We're not going anywhere until you give us some answers!"

Weiss darkened her eyes at Ruby and made a smile of pure delight. "Careful Ruby, the Creatures of Grimm are attracted to fear and despair," she whispered harshly. Her smile deepened even further, "and you reek of both."

A choir of howls was suddenly heard from the forest. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, and Oobleck turned to look and saw a huge pack of about sixty to eighty Beowolves charging out from the trees and heading straight for them. "I trust you girls can handle this," Oobleck said as he brought out his thermos, telescoping it into a mix between a kanabo and a torch, "but I'd rather we delve into these ruins as soon as possible." Weiss smirked as she drew Myrtenaster.

The wave of Grimm collapsed upon the hunters, whom began striking them down. Ruby couldn't speak for the others, but to her it felt damn good to be fighting monsters that died and stayed dead. She zipped forward, cutting three Beowolves in half with one swing. Blake flipped gracefully over the heads of the Grim, neatly slicing them off and leaving the rest of their bodies to slowly fall over. Yang felled a couple of Beowolves with one punch each, the force from her blows resonating through them and shattering their insides like glass. Oobleck swung his weapon at a cluster of Grim, sending their now-flaming corpses flying off into the distance. Weiss held Myrtenaster forward with an outstretched hand, her free hand on her hip and her left leg folded behind her right. She sprung forward and skated around on her glyphs, slashing through four Beowolves and blowing away three more with ice. The last Grimm fell merely a minute since the fight began, though it felt like it had been longer.

"Phew, good workout!" said Yang.

Ruby eyed Weiss again. She knew that her teammate had a couple of different stances, but the one from just a moment ago wasn't anything Ruby had ever seen her use before. "Yang," Ruby whispered over to her sister, "Weiss is left-handed, right?"

"Right, like you. So what?" Yang replied. Her shoulders rose, then fell.

"Well, didn't you notice that she was fighting with Myrtenaster in her _right_ hand?" Ruby hissed.

"Huh?" Yang looked to Weiss as well, whom was already heading into the temple. Myrtenaster was however already sheathed to her waist. "I wasn't looking at her hands, Ruby. My attention was on the Grimm." Yang said shaking her head.

Ruby huffed then followed her team and Oobleck into the temple. They didn't get very far before Weiss held her arm out, motioning them to stop. "Wha-" was all Ruby could get out before spikes sprang up from the floor in front of them, making a loud 'shing' noise before sinking back down.

"Stay behind me in single file." Weiss said as if deadly traps were no big deal. She turned her head to look at her teammates specifically. "It would be a shame to die all the way out here, especially after what you three been through." She gave a peculiar giggle before leading them forward, with Oobleck, Blake, Yang, and Ruby behind her in that order. The way was straight and it remained wide, though Weiss led them in zig-zags and around certain tiles. The shape of the path they took was likely symbolic of something and was meant to keep out nonbelievers. The further the group went, the darker it became. Eventually they resorted to grabbing the shoulder of the person in front of them, save for Ruby whom kept her hands to herself.

"I must know your secret. How are you able to navigate through the darkness so well?" Oobleck asked. Weiss gave him no answer.

"Ugh, I can't see my own hand in front of my face!" Yang said.

"I can still kinda see, not that well though." Blake said.

Ruby kept her left eye closed and her right eye open. She could see the hallway as clear as day, and she cringed at the disturbing hieroglyphics and images on the walls that not even Blake seemed to be aware of. They reminded her of the far worse illustrations she had seen in the city. R'lyeh, Weiss had called it?

"Watch your step." Weiss said as they came to a short flight of stairs. It led into a massive room ten times more vast than Beacon's mess hall. It was so large that their voices and footsteps echoed. "You can let go of whoever is in front of you. There are no traps within this room." Weiss said, brushing off Oobleck's hand from her shoulder.

"Miss Schnee, even if you could be sure of that, it's much too dark in here." Oobleck said, "and you've yet to answer my question on how you're able to see so well."

Weiss, once again, didn't answer. She took a few steps forward, stopped, then spread her arms out ceremonially. Suddenly she began to… was she… singing? She seemed to have begun a slow song in a strange language that none of them recognized. It sounded graceful and it rhymed, charming their senses like a siren's call. Weiss after all did have a great singing voice, and she had sung on stage for large audiences in the past. When she fell silent, all the torches bolted to the walls lit on fire as if triggered by her song. It was still dim but the outline of the room and the images on the walls were easily visible in the light of the fires. A single expansive image stretched across all four walls of the entire room. An entity depicted on the upper-half of the wall directly ahead of them was the definitely the least subtle part of the picture, clearly the focal point of the whole thing. Ruby couldn't tell if it was meant to be a monster or some other thing, but it looked like the result of a billion tentacles, a billion mouths, and a billion eyes squeezed together to form an angry sideways oval. Above it was a number of smaller tentacle-masses each playing musical instruments, an odd if not seemingly random detail Ruby thought. Below it was an explosion followed by circles and balls of fire. Beyond that, stretching to the side-walls, were thousands of strange creatures, each wildly different from the next. One of the creatures nearest to them, among the furthest from the nidus, was clearly human.

"I get it…" Ruby said sounded haunted, pointing from the creatures, "life," to the circles and balls of fire, "the planets and stars," to the explosion, "the Big Bang," then to the mass of tentacles, mouths, and eyes. So… this monster supposedly _caused_ the Big Bang? Why was the whole universe, with all its planets, stars, and galaxies, depicted to be so much _smaller_ than it?

( _Guess who this "mass of tentacles, mouths, and eyes" is._ )

Weiss gazed upon big-ball-of-ugly's image as well. "They look upon us with such indifference, and cruelty." she said before turning to face her companions, "Not that it's stopped you mortals from worshiping them. Your kind has often bowed and scraped to those that are infinitely your better." Blake, Yang, and Oobleck stared at her like she was crazy. Ruby however kept a straight face.

"And what are our 'betters' called?" Ruby asked, "That great big-ball-of-ugly, that 'Cthulhu' thing; what exactly are 'they'?"

"It's impossible to accurately say with this limited vocabulary of yours." Weiss explained in an almost musical tone, as if speaking were halfway to singing, "Poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory of it, calling them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds…" She gave a low, drawn-out cackle.

"She's gone completely bonkers." Yang whispered to Blake.

"Well, this place does seem like some kind of temple," Ruby remarked, "but why is it so different from that city in the ocean?"

"Because unlike this cathedral, R'lyeh was created by powers not of this world." Weiss answered.

"Are you talking about those gross monsters hanging out in…" Ruby paused, " _Rill-yeh_?" she slowly pronounced the name.

Weiss laughed like she heard a joke. "Of course not. They merely moved in a few millennia later." she said.

"Moved in? From where? Could you at least say where _they_ came from?" Ruby asked, starting to feel impatient.

Weiss threw an arm around Ruby, halfway to hugging her. "Oh, I do like that you're so curious, good huntress." she said as she touched Ruby's cheek with her free hand, squeezing it like a coddling grandma while smiling brightly. "Knowing even this little has driven people mad before, but I can see that you're made of stronger stuff." she added, "Come." With her arm still around Ruby, she led her toward what seemed to be a stone altar, located just below the carving of the hideous creature. Chained shackles were at each corner of the altar and a greenish-black ceremonial dagger rested on its center.

"They sacrificed people on that," Ruby said incredulously, not phrasing it as a question, "as part of some ritual or something."

"I'm sure it would seem that way to you. All the same, they made the mistake of thinking that the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods actually gave a damn about it. Men like gods." Weiss said as she picked up the dagger with her free hand and inspected it, "Ah, the same material that binds the Necronomicon…"

Ruby blinked and squinted. "The Necrowhat?" she asked.

Weiss rolled her eyes and shrugged. "The tome you huntresses stole from R'lyeh." she said casually.

"Oh, that. I should've guessed." Ruby said as she looked at the dagger more closely, "But what's so special about this…" she stuttered as she searched for the right words, "mossy-colored… rock… thingy-stuff?"

"It's not rock." Weiss said. Suddenly she forcibly grabbed Ruby by her hair and stabbed her through eye-socket with the dagger making a loud, wet piercing noise. The pain was so intense, so unimaginable that Ruby couldn't even scream.

"Weiss! What are you doing?!" Yang screamed behind them as she, Blake, and Oobleck went from a walk to a run.

Weiss pulled the dagger back out of Ruby's face and… the pain just vanished. Breathing hard and in complete shock, Ruby felt around her right eye with both hands but there was no blood there, nor on the dagger. She gasped in alarm when Weiss began stabbing herself in the stomach over and over. She stopped to reveal that there was no blood, wounds, or even holes in her clothing. "Trippy, huh?" Weiss said as if admiring a toy.

Ruby gave a dumbstruck stare and just blinked. "Did that just happen?" she whispered to herself. She jumped in surprise when Yang damn near tackled her. Their eyes met then Yang looked back and forth from her to Weiss.

"Oh, sorry." Yang said, giving a sigh of relief, "For a moment I thought…" She awkwardly pointed at Weiss. "I thought you…" She pointed back to her sister. "Uh…"

Ruby looked back at the dagger in Weiss's grasp. Come to think of it, that Necronom-whatcha-ma-whoey thing seemed pretty spotless for something that had been underwater for forever. "It's like we can touch something that doesn't exist." Ruby said thoughtfully.

"Well, considering what it came off of," Weiss said sounding as chipper as ever, "it should come as no surprise that it interacts with space and time differently-" She cut off the moment Oobleck put his hand on her shoulder.

"Miss Schnee, give me that dagger, now." Oobleck demanded in a strict, harsh tone.

Weiss let go of Ruby and turned around to meet Oobleck with a straight face. After a short staring contest, she handed him the dagger. "I'd be careful not to cut myself with that if I were you." she said rather cryptically.

Oobleck stuffed the dagger into his shoulder bag. "Yes of course," his tone darkened, "but right now I am more interested in how you know so much."

"'How'?" Weiss quoted with an eyebrow cocked, "I was here back when this temple was first built." She chuckled as Blake, Yang, and Oobleck shot her another look, this time with a whiff of caution rather than confusion. Weiss half-spread her arms out before saying, "Like the headmaster of your huntsmen academy guessed, it was from a time before the Creatures of Grimm existed. By the way, R'lyeh predates _this place_ by millions of years. Let that sink in for a moment."

"Did you see all of this in a dream or something?" Blake asked in a calm tone. Her hands seemed to be shaking however.

"A dream? Hah, cute." Weiss said with amusement, "My kind shed the ability to dream long ago. This adaption is what's kept our minds from unraveling for all these millennia."

Yang cracked her knuckles. "Alright, that's it Weiss." she said, sounding sick of Weiss's strange behavior, "For your own good, I'm gonna-"

Ruby tugged on Yang's arm to get her attention before saying, "That's not Weiss."

"Ruby," Yang began with a sigh, "you haven't been acting any less strange."

"Look, I don't know how, why, or in what way," Ruby said with her voice raised, "but I do know for certain is that it just isn't her!"

"You know," Weiss butted in before Yang could respond, "I expected that one of you would catch on sooner than this, none of you are stupid, but we see only what we want to see, right?"

Yang shot 'Weiss' a questioning look. Blake on the other hand pointed Gambol Shroud, not looking quite as skeptical. Oobleck between each of the girls, clearly thinking that he had missed something. Ruby held Crescent Rose at the ready, itching to use it, but hesitated when she looked upon Weiss's face. Was her friend possessed or was this not her in body as well? "Who are you?" Ruby asked woefully, " _What_ are you?!" she added more harshly.

'Weiss' slowly paced around them, ending up standing between them and the way they came in. "What am I?" 'Weiss' rephrased as if pretending to be offended. "I'm human of course. I'm one of you." She giggled playfully, but then her expression shifted to what Ruby could only describe as sinister. "Come to think of it, I am _many_ of you." she added with a wicked, closed-mouth smile.

Yang scratched her head, looking appropriately confused. "Ma… many of us?" she said.

"Well… to be more specific, we are humans that have been improved by… erm…" 'Weiss' paused to search for the right word, " _mingling_ with Cthulhu's spawn and being around them for long periods of time. Star-spawn we call them." As she spoke, a second voice could clearly be heard talking along with her. "You see, merely looking upon Cthulhu is fatal to mortals, but we have developed into a state of being that can handle it." By the end of her sentence, Weiss's voice had completely faded out and the 'second voice' was all that was left. It still sounded female, even young, but also monstrous and unnatural.

"So… the creatures in R'lyeh are human cultists that turned themselves into monsters?" Ruby surmised, sounded appalled.

'Weiss' nodded. "To achieve eternal life, yes, but R'lyeh is not _our_ city. It belongs to Cthulhu and his more direct creations." she said in an unsuitably friendly tone, "What you encountered was basically the city's rat infestation!"

Blake leaned closer to Ruby and Yang. "This thing, whatever it is we're talking to," she whispered to them, "it must be incredibly old. Maybe it-"

"I prefer 'seasoned'." 'Weiss' suddenly interjected, "Age stopped having meaning after we ascended."

Blake glared at the thing with Weiss's face. Considering how good the impostor's sense of sight seemed to be, it was to be expected that her sense of hearing would also be unnaturally sharp. "Ascended? Those creatures in R'lyeh were sick abominations!" Blake yelled back.

"Looking grotesque is hardly a price for immortality," 'Weiss' said modestly, "especially when you can mimic whatever body you want anyways." she quickly added. She put a hand on her hip, touched one of her own breasts, and tilted a leg up in a flirtatious pose. "Like this sexy one."

Ruby gritted her teeth in distaste. Seeing this mockery of her friend just made her snap. "Just you wait. We'll see how immortal 'your people' are when Remnant's huntsmen cut each and every one of them down!" she shouted in another uncharacteristically angry outburst.

"Don't be so impulsive, huntress." 'Weiss' said, sounding unimpressed, "Your cities remain standing only because they're too inconsequential for the Great Old One to care about." She made another wicked smile. "But don't feel bad. You have the attention of those whom have already ascended. We only wish to help you."

"And what's your idea of 'helping us'?" Yang asked bitterly.

'Weiss' gave an innocent shrug. "Preserving all that you are for eternity." she responded plainly, "Your culture, your beliefs, your identities, all immortalized. Is that somehow worse than complete annihilation when Cthulhu inevitably steps out for a morning exercise?"

Ruby's eyes widened as she slowly lowered her scythe. "You mean, that walking mountain once…" her voice trailed off.

'Weiss' nodded. "Nearly my entire civilization was wiped out last time he awoke. The few of us that managed to survive…" she paused to sing a few notes in that strange language again, "did so by becoming like this." The lights all went out. Her smile was the last thing that could be seen before everything went pitch black. The tiara-like hairpin Weiss had always used to keep her hair in a ponytail dropped to the floor, making a faint echo throughout the room.

For a moment there was only silence, then Oobleck ignited a flare that emitted a blinding red light, though it illuminated only a few feet around him. He threw it forward, hitting the ground with a 'click' before rolling to where 'Weiss' had been standing and stopping against raptor-like talon. Weiss's hairpin could be seen on the ground behind it. Looking up from the flare, an eldritch, horrible-looking creature had become barely visible. It stood up on two legs, too tall to be human. Its head was more like a wide, long tentacle with a huge teeth-filled mouth at the base. There were no eyes. There were two arms where they should have been plus a third one attached to the right hip. Thin tentacles of varying lengths grew out from spots all over its slimy body. It seemed to be holding something in its right hand. A… severed arm?

"Good lord!" Oobleck shouted.

"Oh no…" Blake breathed.

"Hentai incarnate!" Yang cried.

"You…" Ruby muttered as she stared at the creature in shock. She recognized the monster's outline. "You were the one watching us in that city's library." she said stiffly.

" _I began watching you much earlier than that._ " the monster said in clear English. Its voice sounded even more atrocious and slimy. " _Perhaps I am still human enough to wait and consider which one of you I'd feel most at home as._ "

"You monster! What have you done with Weiss?!" Blake shouted.

" _Your friend never left R'lyeh._ " the creature said as it held up a disembodied arm. The arm was perfectly preserved and was wearing a torn white sleeve resembling that of Weiss's jackets, particularly the one that got shredded when they were escaping R'lyeh. The flare went out, but Ruby could still see as some of the creature's tentacles inserted themselves into Weiss's arm where it was severed. The arm flexed as the rest of the creature shapeshifted to perfectly mimic Weiss again, except that her hair was now dropped down straight. The torches in the room became lit again. "Most of her, anyways." she said using Weiss's voice, "I took a sample in case I needed to refresh my memory." She made a fist with the arm that had belonged to the real Weiss.

Ruby gasped so hard that she recoiled. "Don't you dare use her voice!" she shrieked furiously with her scythe raised. She nearly charged forward, but Oobleck put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head, obviously curious to what this creature had to say.

"In the meantime, how about I take a few samples from the three of you?" the shiftshaping creature said. She looked from Blake, to Yang, to Oobleck, but not at Ruby. "I don't need much. Just a finger, maybe only a few hairs."

Ruby gritted her teeth. "That's not gonna' happen." she declared.

"Come now, in return I can save you with the gift of immortality." the shapeshifter said delicately, "It doesn't matter if you don't want it. You _will_ learn to like it, as we did."

Oobleck was uniquely fascinated by what he was looking at. He did, after all, consider himself an intellectual before a huntsmen. What was practically a newly discovered species was standing right there in front of him. "Getting us to follow in your footsteps seems awfully important to you… you." he paused to try and remember if a name was given, "This is a little off topic but what do we call you? Does your kind even use names for individuality?"

The thing with Weiss's face shrugged. "What you call me is irrelevant, but if you need a name to give voice to what I am, Lenore, Piety, Justine, Miriam, and of course Weiss are a few names from the people that I'm made of." she said, brushing a finger through her hair… Weiss's hair, as she inspected it, "Come to think of it, Miriam also had white hair. She kept it long and straight exactly like this." She jerked her head back to flip her hair stylishly. "Your friend isn't a princess like she was, but it's close enough. You could say the resemblance is why I picked her out of the lot of you."

"Okay… Miriam." Ruby said with her scythe still raised, "That's much easier than giant-rotting-earthworms-stapled-together." She watched the creature… Miriam… with a look of unease, not quite sure what to make of it now. It was both barbaric and cultured. Its true form was terrifying and it definitely meant her harm, but at the same time, it just seemed so… human. Its personality greatly differed from Weiss's, but it still behaved a bit like a teenager. It also really liked to talk.

"Whatever you were before, your mind is intoxicated!" Blake said fiercely with her weapon pointed at Miriam, "You're completely brainwashed into serving that squid-monster now."

"Cthulhu doesn't even care about us. We simply respect his power!" Miriam snarled, now seeming annoyed, "They always do, sooner or later."

"All of Remnant is united and ready to face him." Blake said in defiance, "Don't be so quick to underestimate us either!"

"Haha. If you're fool enough to think they can fight, let alone challenge a foe that is literally omnipresent-" Miriam was interrupted when Blake zipped forward and stabbed her through the head between the eyes. A few moments passed before Miriam blinked and calmly added, "Sorry, I didn't realize we were starting." Blake recoiled in surprised, yanked her sword out, then leapt back. "To be honest, I'd rather keep running my mouth. I don't like fighting." Miriam said as she whipped out Myrtenaster with a thunderous 'shing'. The hole in her head had already mended itself, as if it were never there.

Ruby leaned closer to Oobleck. "Mr. Oobleck," she whispered, "I know we don't get to talk to million-year-old beings that speak English everyday, but this thing is dangerous. We're taking it down."

Oobleck shot a look of protest. "But this specimen-"

"There's a heck of a lot more of them!" Ruby said and sprang forward using her semblance of speed. Miriam casually raised Weiss's rapier, stopping Crescent Rose's blade like it had no weight to it. Yang strafed in from the side and punched Miriam square in the face, causing her head to explode like a watermelon before it pulled itself back together as if on rewind.

"Try something else!" Miriam yelled, sounding dissatisfied. She swung Myrtenaster with uncanny force, sending Ruby and Yang tumbling back. Blake dashed toward Miriam head-on, vanishing just before her attack would have been blocked by Myrtenaster and reappeared behind her. Blake swung her blade but Miriam caught her wrist with her free hand without bothering to turn around. Blake struggled, but Miriam's grip was like stone. "Predictable." Miriam said before letting go, causing Blake to fall backwards onto her butt.

"All at once!" Ruby yelled as she and Yang charged Miriam's front, "Chop it to pieces! The smaller, the better! We'll lock them up in separate boxes on the Bullhead!" Blake stood up and nodded in acknowledgment. To their surprise, Miriam threw Myrtenaster up in the air. Not stopping to wonder why, Ruby and Yang moved in for the attack, but Miriam reached out with both hands, bonked their heads together, then caught Myrtenaster. Ruby and Yang fell to the floor clutching their heads in agony. Blake rapidly attacked Miriam on her own as she teleported all around her, but the creature definitely had better reflexes than Torchwick, blocking everything with ease. As if deciding she was already bored with Blake, Miriam's hand went to where Blake was going to teleport to, grabbed her, and bopped her on the head with Myrtenaster's hilt. She fell over unconscious.

Yang pounded the stone floor, cracking it. "I don't like being toyed with!" she yelled in outrage as her eyes turned red. She sprang up and punched Miriam harder than Ruby had ever seen her punch before, creating a deafening shockwave. The attack was blocked, but it knocked Miriam off balance and caused Myrtenaster to fly out of her hand. Yang threw a second punch, but Miriam caught the incoming fist with her bare hand. Miriam's arm even seemed to dislocate for a moment before it snapped back into position. The two wrestled for a moment, then Yang threw her opponent forward. Miriam slowly stood up, holding strands of Yang's hair in both hands. An already angry Yang gawked in astonishment then pounded her fists together in rage to activate her Semblance. Her eyes glowed red and her hair briefly sprang up as it explosively began to burn like the sun.

Miriam grinned. The strands of gold hair she had ripped from Yang sank into her hands before she pounded her fists together as well. Her eyes glowed red and her hair briefly sprang up as it burned in a silvery-blue fire. Yang's expression lit up with surprise at this mockery of her own semblance. Miriam skated forward on a pathway of glyphs, using both Weiss's and Yang's semblances at the same time, and punched Yang with both blinding speed and staggering force. Yang dropped to her knees then slowly fell face-down on the floor.

"No, Yang!" Ruby shouted. She sprang forward swinging Crescent Rose, but the shapeshifter caught the scythe's handle just below the blade with one hand. The instant stop caused Ruby to crash into her own weapon's handle like she had run face-first into a flag pole. She collected herself, pulled on Crescent Rose, but it was like the weapon was frozen solid in place.

"If you fight me like a mortal, you will lose like one," Miriam said instructively, "like them." She gestured toward Blake and Yang. She pushed Crescent Rose into Ruby, sending her and her weapon flying back before sliding across the floor. Miriam turned and musically whistled to herself as she walked over to Weiss's rapier, put the toe of her boot below it, kicked it up, and caught it.

Oobleck watched the situation worriedly. The creature would have been a valuable specimen, but… "The lives of our comrades come first." Oobleck said to himself and ran toward Miriam with his weapon drawn.

" _Stay out of this_!" Miriam yelled using her monstrous voice. As if she willed it, all the lights in the room went out, leaving Oobleck completely blinded. His brief cry of pain could be heard as Ruby saw Miriam stab him through the knee and kick his weapon aside. The lights came back on.

Ruby stood up with her weapon at the ready and teeth clenched, but this fight seemed completely hopeless. "C'mon Ruby, think." she murmured to herself as the shapeshifting creature nonchalantly began to walk toward her.

"Use only your right eye for now." Miriam said in Weiss's voice, "Focus only on what you want to see, and your senses wont overload and give you a headache."

"Wha… what?!" Ruby said in confusion.

"I know, it feels overwhelming at first." Miriam said patiently, stopping a few feet away with Myrtenaster drawn as if in a dual, "It is a great mercy that the mortal mind cannot correlate all its contents, but you are not mortal anymore. Let go of the human approach that you've mindlessly been regurgitating out of habit alone, you are not limited to them anymore. Relax your mind and break away from what you're so used to being. I'll wait."

Ruby gave a suspicious look, but decided that she was out of options anyways. She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate, flexing her mind and body, trying to feel for anything unfamiliar. She had no doubt that this concerned her mutating eye somehow, but that wasn't much to go on. "How will I know when I find it?" she asked.

"You are not searching for anything new. You are disregarding your mortal restraints." Miriam said before waving Ruby to come at her. "I'm here if you need help getting your bearings." Her face, hair, and voice suddenly changed to mimic Yang's. "Or would you rather spar with your older sister?" she asked teasingly. At that sight, Ruby just lost it. She bolted for Miriam, screaming as she went. "I take that as a no?" Miriam said before changing back to her previous form and casually blocking Ruby's flurry of attacks with Myrtenaster.

Ruby pushed herself as hard as she could; move faster, hit harder, but she quickly reached her limit while Miriam had yet to break a sweat. "Put on your own face!" Ruby yelled.

"I'm trying to help you make me." Miriam said graciously. Suddenly, Ruby felt a huge surge of speed and strength that threw her off balance. She stumbled forward, catching Miriam off guard and slicing halfway into her shoulder. Ruby fell on her face, lying there for a moment before looking up to see Crescent Rose chopped into Miriam's chest. Miriam gave a blank stare down at the scythe before pulling it out and tossing it aside. "Close." Miriam said calmly, "I think you can figure out the rest from here." She turned and started toward the exit, inspecting her now half-torn white coat. "What a shame. I rather like this girl's sense of fashion." she added.

Ruby got up, grabbed Crescent Rose, and attacked again. "Not so fast!" she yelled before chopping off Miriam's head from behind. Miriam calmly reached up, caught her own head, and put it right back on. Ruby was then knocked down so fast that she didn't even see what hit her.

"You've had but a taste of what you're still becoming." Miriam said as she continued to walk away, "Confront me again when you've grown more accustomed to it." She shifted to a fast glide on Weiss's glyphs toward the way out.

Ruby looked on with a glare of hatred. She treasured her friendships, and to see this monster come along and throw on Weiss's, and briefly Yang's, faces like she were trying on fur coats sickened her. "Weiss…" Ruby silently whispered. She got up to pursue Miriam, using her semblance of speed to keep up. She jumped between the walls like a ricocheting rubber bullet to avoid the floor traps of the hallway, until she suddenly slipped and began falling toward a part of the floor that had holes for spikes to come out of. She yipped in panic, flailing her arms around, and landed on one of Weiss's white glyphs just as it appeared over the floor. "Phew, thanks Wei-" She took a moment to reprocess what was going on. "Hey! Why did you do that?!" she yelled at Miriam, whom had a palm reached out for the glyph.

"I only want what's best for you, huntress." Miriam said cheerfully. As she turned to leave, the glyph under Ruby bounced her up before disappearing and she landed face-first onto a safe part of the floor.

"Stop sounding so creepy-friendly!" Ruby shouted as she carefully stood back up. She went back to wall-jumping down the hall as she had been then landed crouched just outside the temple. From there, she could see Miriam in the distance, waving the Bullhead in to come and pick her up. "You're kidding me…" Ruby muttered. She raced toward the transport but it had already touched down. Miriam in her hideous-monster form slithered on board and right away the pilot's screams could be heard from the cockpit area. The Bullhead took off again just as Ruby barely missed it. She came to a tired stop and looked on sourly as the transport flew up and away. She could see that disgusting thing through the cockpit window. It seemed to be waving at her. "No! Nooooooo!" Ruby shouted as she dropped Crescent Rose, threw both hands on her head, and stomped on the ground repeatedly. Perhaps she should have listened to Ozpin and Yang after all. Then again, there actually wasn't anything bad here. Instead, they had brought the bad with them, and now it had left them stranded. "Dang it! Dang it! Dang it!"

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **I apologize if it's any disappointment that I'm putting a spin on the 'cultist' villain type. My original thought process on it was: "Hmm, what in the Cthulhu Mythos is allowed to be fought?" To be honest, with how niche H. P. Lovecraft's stuff is, I really didn't expect many readers to know much about the mythos.**

 **Everyone knows about Cthulhu himself, but things like The Great Race of Yith, the Elder Things, and the Mi-go are just too** **… obscure.** **I did consider using them, but outside of the typical "brief encounter, don't understand it, go crazy because of it" plot line, there just wouldn't be anywhere to go with them without making something up, and that's because we just aren't meant to know enough about them to be able to. They're designed for short stories rather than an episodic fanfiction story like this one.**

 **I feel I should also mention that this is pretty much a RWBY story first, so I wanted to keep it simple by using just the famous Cthulhu… at first anyways. I'll probably throw in more if this story grows big enough. I just wanted to start small. Anyways, fearing that I would confuse myself and the readers, I wanted to put less emphasis on the pretend-science and more on the themes that they're meant to bring.**

 **Let me say again that I am somewhat making this up as I go.**


	5. Chapter 5: Gaslighting

**I can't thank you all enough for encouraging me to keep going with this. Now I feel silly for once thinking that I should have stopped after chapter 1. Chapter 2 spent three days in the recycle bin before I caved in and decided to just post it.**

* * *

Ruby awoke in a clean white bed in a small room with no windows. There was a dresser in the corner, a small mirror hung up on the wall, the walls were padded, and the door was closed. Somehow it seemed obvious that the door was also locked. She sat up and looked down at herself, noticing that she was wearing a white patient gown. She looked forward and found Yang sitting at the edge of the bed wearing her normal getup. "Yang? Where are we?" Ruby asked.

"It's alright, sis." Yang said as she slid closer to her little sister, "We're in a…" her eyes darted around as she searched for the right words, "a safe place."

"I don't get it." Ruby said looking around frantically, "What happened to the face-stealing monster?"

"C'mon Ruby, don't start talking about that again." Yang said worriedly. She grabbed onto her sister's shoulders and stared into her. "Look, there's no Grim that can steal faces." she said in a tired voice, having repeated it for the hundredth time.

"As I recall, her make-believe monster isn't supposed to be a Grim." Blake said, speaking up. She was also in her normal clothes and she looked sad, concerned maybe.

"'My monster'? But it took-" Ruby gasped when she noticed 'Weiss' and looked around in panic for a sharp object or anything else she could use to defend herself. Yang did the best she could to gently restrain her.

"Not that I'd wish it on either of you," Weiss said frowning, "but why does she only freak out when she sees _me_?"

Blake shook her head at how madly Ruby searched around. "I was hoping this would be one of her good days." Blake said with a sigh, "They're getting few and far between."

"At least she's actually talking to us." Yang said resolute, "She wouldn't even speak to Dad." she added more gravely.

"Yeah, and at least she's not going on and on about that boogeyman of hers." said Weiss, "What did she call it again? Maria?"

"Don't say that in front of her!" Yang whispered angrily, "You know what the therapist guy said!"

Ruby slowly relaxed, taking deep breaths. She looked at her reflection in the mirror on the wall and was surprised to see that both eyes were completely normal.

Blake frowned and shook her head. "She still thinks that her eye is changing too." she muttered regretfully.

"No," Ruby said shaking her head in shock, "no, no, no! This has to be some kind of trick!"

"Ruby! Try to stay calm." said Yang.

"We… we have to get out of here!" Ruby screamed, "That thing… Miriam is inside our heads!"

"Sis," Yang said patiently, "I know you don't like it here but it's only to help you get better."

"But something terrible will happen to Vale!"

"We've heard this story before. Monsters are _not_ rising out of the ocean to eat us."

Ruby leapt out of bed and retreated to a corner away from her 'teammates'. "This isn't real!" She pointed a shaking finger at them. "None of you are real! I know you're not! You're just another one of her tricks!"

"Stop it Ruby! Please! No more!" Yang shouted and hugged her sister, "I just want my old sister back! The way she used to be!" She started to cry. "I mean, wouldn't it be great if we could go back to attending Beacon together? The four of us, as a team again?"

Ruby felt something die inside her. Now more than ever she wanted to return to a time when everything seemed simpler. Not even a week had passed, yet it seemed so long ago. She hugged her sister back tightly. "Yeah, that would be great." she whispered sobbingly.

The hug ended. Yang put her hands on Ruby's shoulders and looked at her. "You feeling good enough for a walk around the garden?" she asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea." Weiss said to Yang in a harsh whisper, "Her fantasies are growing more and more elaborate."

"It'll be alright if we stay with her." Yang said assertively, "Being trapped in here isn't good for her either."

Weiss shrugged before saying, "Fine, but when she starts rambling about strange angles and evil books again, it'll be on you."

"It always has been. She's _my_ little sis." Yang said.

Ruby put on some slippers and the four of them were allowed out of the padded room and into the middle of a hallway. Looking left and right, Ruby could see fidgety, depressed looking patients standing, walking, or sitting around. Patients like her? There were also a few men and old women in white. Doctors and nurses? More doors like the one to her own lined both sides of the hall. More padded rooms? "This is… a hospital?" Ruby whispered. Was this the first time she'd seen this place? It couldn't be. It all looked so familiar to her. It felt like she had been here for a long time.

"C'mon, it's this way," Yang said, motioning to the right, "like it was last week."

Ruby lethargically followed until the four of them came outside. The asylum garden was rather nice. It had green grass, bushes, and trees, a stone pathway that ran by every corner, and a water fountain at the center, but it was walled off from the rest of the world by twenty-foot concrete walls. Other patients and security guards were hanging out here, and they all looked friendly enough.

Weiss seemed to notice how frantically Ruby was looking around. "Oh no. You've been skipping out on your medication again, haven't you?"

"N…. no." Ruby lied, making a huge nervous grin. She didn't like taking those pills. They got in the way of saving Vale.

"'In the way of saving Vale'?" Blake quoted, "Great, she's talking to herself again." she added regretfully.

"What do you expect?" Weiss said as she shook her head, "Without her meds, she has a hard time separating fiction from reality."

"C'mon gals, give her some space." Yang said, getting between them and Ruby. She gently led Ruby forward toward the fountain. "She just needs some fresh air." Yang added. Ruby hugged her sister's side without thinking, like she were a little girl.

"How old was I again?" Ruby privately thought to herself, "How long have I been staying here?" Her memory was so blurry. Right now all she knew was that she felt… at peace. She liked the fresh air and warm sun, especially after being locked in that stuffy room for so long, but more than anything was Yang's comforting presence. Sure she was annoyingly protective and bubbly, but she always found a way to make things seem a little brighter.

"It's alright, baby sis." Yang said, hugging her back, "I'm not going anywhere."

"Yang…" Ruby whispered dizzily. Having been part of her whole life, she never really realized how often she clung to Yang for support. With a touch of her hand, Yang could turn one's life to gold…

 _Don't worry, I've got you,_

 _Nothing will ever harm you,_

 _I'm close by, I'll stay here,_

 _Through all things I will be near._

 _Close your eyes,_

 _Don't you cry,_

 _Love's around you,_

 _In time you'll fly._

…

"Ruby?" came Yang's voice. "Ruby?" Yang said with her voice raided. "Ruby!" Yang yelled.

"Huh? What?" Ruby gibbered as she blinked and shook her head around. She wasn't holding onto anyone.

"I was telling you that we should slow down! Oobleck's knee hasn't gotten any better!" Yang yelled to her from a distance behind. Traveling beside her was Oobleck using his weapon as a walking stick and Blake whom casually held her weapon at the ready.

Ruby turned to face her friends and looked around. There were still trees everywhere, but the walls, the other patients, the stone pathways, the fountain, the whole psychiatric hospital… it was all gone. There was only her, Blake, Yang, Oobleck, and the forest. She took a moment to look down at herself and found that she was wearing her red and black hoodie again. Crescent Rose was in its compacted form below her back.

"Look." Blake whispered as she, Yang, and Oobleck got closer, "She's not making that creepy smile anymore."

Ruby gawked when she realized how impossible it should have been for her to overhear Blake. It was a whisper from twenty feet away. Come to think of it, Ruby felt completely aware of every little thing that was moving around her. Waves of wind that brushed over the grass, scraping sounds from leafs as they landed in the grass, the annoying buzzing noise of an insect flying off from the forth tree to her left. She could hear everything, loud and quiet, yet her ears weren't overwhelmed by it. An acorn fell from the tree above her and she automatically reached up to catch it without looking.

"Hey, your left eye looks alright again." Yang said to Ruby as she came up to her.

"Uh… 'scuse me?" Ruby said with confusion, "What are you talking about?"

"Each of us have mentioned it a few times now." Oobleck said, "Your normal eye was rolled to the back of your head since we awoke at first light. Don't tell me you've only noticed."

"Since we… first light?" Ruby trailed off. The last thing she could remember was the four of them making camp, going to sleep for the night, and planning to continue their journey to Vale on foot in the morning. This area didn't look anything like the part of the forest they had set up camp in. "Gosh, I hope a bit more walking will wake me up some more." Ruby said with a hand to her forehead.

"Ruby, we've been walking for over four hours." Blake said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Ruby slowly looked more and more horrified. She swore that she had just woken up from a dream… standing up… four hours from where she went to sleep. " _There will be no dreams for you, not anymore_." Miriam had told her.

"Ruby?" Yang said worriedly, "I know you literally just said you felt great, but I'm having doubts."

Ruby couldn't recall saying such a thing. She suddenly took off through the trees with blinding speed, though she was sure she hadn't activated her semblance.

"Wait! Ruby! Come back!" Yang yelled behind her.

Ruby came to a clearing with a small lake, having known that it was there due to the sounds of calm waters. She fell to her knees and looked at her reflection in the water. Her right eye was still blood red, but the pupil now resembled that of a snake's. There was no eye-white. It felt as if a monster was staring back at her instead of her own eye. If it had a mouth, it would be smiling at her like a crocodile looking at fresh meat.

"Ruby! What are you doing?!" Yang said as she ran out from the trees and caught up with her.

Ruby silently continued to stare at her own reflection. She had no doubt that she was sick with… whatever had changed Miriam and those other monsters, but there was something else now… something new. It was like her eye's condition had readied it for whatever that dagger did to it. The dagger… it was associated with ball-of-ugly rather than that Cthulhu guy. "Yang, how have I been acting since we got up today?" Ruby asked in her most serious tone.

Yang cocked an eyebrow at her, clearly baffled by the odd question. "Why would you ask me that of all things?" was her response.

"Humor me, Yang. Gimme a recap or something."

Yang put her hands on her hips and made a stern look. "Well, if you want an evaluation, you've been giving everyone the 'cold shoulder' and sometimes talked about getting back to Vale like it would be the funnest thing ever. You also really seemed to enjoy chopping up that last pack of Grimm we encountered, and I mean like, _really_ enjoy it." She squinted at her little sister. "Is there something you'd like to say about any of that?"

With Yang still at her back, Ruby stared at herself with a frightened look. Was something else being 'her' while she was 'dreaming'? She probably couldn't trust herself to not be a danger to the others. They might even be better off if they just left her behind in this forest. The thought scared her. "N… no." Ruby blurted out, putting on a fake smile as she turned her head to look at Yang, "forget I said anything."

Yang frowned. "Alright, done." she said with a shrug. She helped her sister up before adding, "Lets get back to Blake and Oobleck."

They took a few steps before Ruby stopped. "Umm, Yang?" she said.

"Yeah sis?"

"T… thank you."

Yang made a confused look. "For what?"

Ruby shrugged awkwardly. "You know… for… being there and all."

Yang made a blank stare before embracing her in a bear hug. "Hey, don't worry about it. I'll always be here for ya'." she said warmly.

XXX

Jaune had been feeling sick for a while, not that it stopped him from attending classes. It felt more like it was because of something he ate rather than anything contagious. He asked to be excused so that he could head to the bathroom over and over, but each time he could never really 'go'. Eventually the professors just flat out ignored him, believing his requests to be insincere and nothing more than attempts to skip out on class. All that aside, the day had been mostly normal. Once classes were over, Jaune tried knocking on the door to team RWBY's room, having grown curious from not seeing them all day. He didn't really expect an answer. Seeing as how Oobleck's history lesson had been canceled today, they were probably still out on their mission with him, not to mention there was no light coming from under the door. Jaune jumped back in surprise when the door unexpectedly opened anyways.

"Jaune?" Weiss said, opening the door slightly and peaking through at him, "Dare I ask how you knew I was in?"

"Uh…" Jaune scratched his head in embarrassment, "lucky guess?" He noted how quiet it was behind Weiss. Ruby and Yang would've been making noise if they were there, being the type and all. "Where's the rest of your team?" Jaune asked.

"They'll be around soon." Weiss said rather cryptically.

Jaune then noticed the white bra strap on what little of Weiss's shoulder he could see. She seemed to be shirtless. "Umm, if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing?" Jaune asked.

"Getting dressed for an errand." Weiss said tenderly, "Would you… mind coming in to help me?" she added with a foxy expression on her face.

Jaune scratched his head even harder, this time rather bashfully. "Well yeah I-"

"Jaune?" Pyrrha called from down the hallway, "You up for tonight's training or is your stomach still hurting?"

"I'm fine now, Pyrrha." Jaune said, having turned to call back to her, "I'll meet you out on the roof in a minute."

"Okay!" Pyrrha said cheerfully and strode off.

"Sorry, I owe it to my team to do this." Jaune said to Weiss humbly, "How about we can grab a bite to eat, watch a movie, and study together tomorrow?"

Weiss stared in the direction Pyrrha had spoken from with irritation. "Fine with me." Weiss said before shutting the door. Miriam stood inside the dark room alone. The part of her that Jaune had been allowed to see was 'Weiss', while the rest that remained out of his sight was a tentacled monstrosity.

Before long, Jaune came running through the door to the rooftop, which doubled as his and Pyrrha's private training ground. "Sorry to keep ya' waiting." Jaune said.

"No worries." Pyrrha said as she and Jaune took positions to begin practicing their swordplay. "Is there something going on between you and Weiss?" Pyrrha asked as their weapons lightly clashed.

Jaune cringed. He hadn't told anyone what happened during the last night on the cruise ship. He didn't want to lie to Pyrrha; he just hadn't thought of a good way to say it yet. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that actually." he said.

"You… have?" Pyrrha asked, now sounding curious.

"Remember that strange landmass team RWBY went to check out?" Jaune said, lowering his sword, "After they got back, I found Weiss in the ship's ballroom right after you left."

Pyrrha nodded. "I can only imagine how down she must have been. The rest of her team looked so depressed and defeated." she said.

Jaune stroked his chin and pondered. He had never seen Weiss look as happy as she was in that ballroom. It was odd, disturbing even. "Yeah… uh…"

"Now let me guess." Pyrrha continued, "You managed to get on her good side by comforting her."

Jaune shrugged. "Not exactly." he murmured meekly, "I mean, I don't think she was throwing herself at me to get emotional support."

"Throwing herself? Did you two… kiss?"

"That's uh… putting it lightly."

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow curiously. "As in?"

Jaune gulped. He still didn't know how to say it, so he said it. "She makes noises like a chipmunk when she get's _really_ excited."

Pyrrha gasped in surprise. "Jaune!" she said, sounding appalled, "I thought so much better of…" she made a deep sigh, "of _Weiss_."

"I'm sorry, Pyrrha. It was selfish of me to-"

"No no, it's okay." Pyrrha quickly said with a hand raised, "We're friends, but we're not together or anything." She managed to keep a smile on with noticeable effort. She and Jaune remained silent for a bit.

"Look, if you want to skip today's training, I'd understand." Jaune said remorsefully. "I can go out for a jog instead."

"Okay." Pyrrha said before leaving, seeming disappointed instead of angry.

Jaune gave a sigh of relief. "That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." he murmured to himself.

Pyrrha headed through the hallway to her team's room. "It's Jaune's choice who he wants to spend time with." she muttered to herself with a sigh. She stopped in front of her room's door and pulled out her key card.

"A waste of so much strength." Weiss said, standing behind her.

Pyrrha jumped in surprise, so startled that she dropped her key card. It was like Weiss had popped out of the floor. "Whoa there Weiss! You should wear a bell!" Pyrrha said, trying to catch her breath.

Weiss was wearing her secondary outfit and had her hair dropped down straight. She crouched down to pick up the key card, stood back up, and handed it over to Pyrrha. "You should hold onto what is yours, girl." she said, smiling at Pyrrha with her eyes wide open.

Pyrrha cautiously took the key card, eying Weiss with suspension. "Thanks…" she said warily.

"Anything for a self-proclaimed warrior that fights for anything but herself."

"Hey!" Pyrrha grumbled, now angry, "Do you have a problem?"

"For all your strength, you are useless to us, not like the one with the scythe."

Pyrrha's eyes darkened as she silently stared back at Weiss. Those hallow eyes, that mischievous smile, that expression of pure delight… Pyrrha didn't know Weiss extremely well, but she had a hard time believing that this was the same person. Instead of asking her what she was talking about… "You don't get me as well as you think." she said. She turned on her heel, entered her team's room, and shut the door.

XXX

To be continued…


	6. Chapter 6: Red In The Mirror

**Never trust white-haired lady-like chicks in my fanfics.**

* * *

Jaune came to the plaza in front of Vale's enormous transmit tower. It was said that it wasn't as big as the original, the one in Atlas, but this massive skyscraper was still quite a sight to behold. Jaune looked around through all the people in this crowded place. He was supposed to meet Weiss here. By the time he wandered to the plaza's center, he finally spotted her sitting on a bench by herself, though what had caught his attention was the young man his age fleeing from Weiss like he had seen a ghost. He stumbled as he ran right by Jaune, breathing hard with a look of terror on his face, and hurriedly picked himself up to continue running. Jaune wasn't the only one here that looked on with curiosity, but before long he just shrugged and walked toward Weiss.

Weiss was expressionlessly staring up at the sky, casually swinging her legs back and forth in boredom. "Oh, there you are." she said when she noticed Jaune standing in front of her.

"Hey." Jaune said awkwardly. If he felt that Weiss looked different when she had her ponytail on the back of her head rather than the side, he wouldn't have been able to identify her with her hair dropped down were it not for that familiar white getup. "Love the new look…" Jaune's voice trailed off as he turned around to search for the frightened teenager, but he was long gone now. "That guy that ran off. What was that about?" Jaune asked.

Weiss stood up. "Oh him? He was just trying to 'pick me up'." she said coolly, "He didn't handle rejection very well." She chuckled.

Jaune cringed. "Uhuh…" He thought back on how horrified the guy had looked. Somehow he doubted that it was something that simple. For a while he and Weiss just stared at each other.

"Is this what you pictured us doing when you asked me out?" Weiss asked. She seemed in good spirits but her exact expression was hard to pinpoint. Something about her behavior almost seemed alien.

"Uh, of course not." Jaune said, trying to put on a confident face, "What do you want to do?"

"It's the boy's job to think of what a couple should do on a date." Weiss said with a smirk.

"Okay…" Jaune exhaled as he struggled to think of something quick. Visit a gift shop and take a wild guess on what she would like? Go to the movie theater without knowing what was currently screening? Head to a restaurant even though it was the late afternoon? The only thing he could decide on was that every option was in- "Vale's commercial district. Lets head down there." he said, deciding to improvise.

"So be it." Weiss said before following Jaune.

Elsewhere at the edge of the plaza, Pyrrha watched them at a distance from behind a tree. Although she couldn't put her finger on it, there was something about Weiss that just she didn't like. Her eyes slowly lit up with surprise when Weiss seemed to turn her head and make some sort of gesture at her despite being so far away.

"So… what made you want to go out with me? I mean, you never really gave me a chance before." Jaune said to Weiss as they walked side by side.

"Nostalgia." Weiss said, walking with her hands clasped together behind her back, "You remind me of a boy I used to date."

Jaune glanced at her. "Someone you know back in Atlas?" he asked.

"No, _far_ more distant than that. I tried to bring him with me a long time ago, but ultimately he was left behind."

Jaune felt at a loss. Never mind that her answer didn't explain her sudden change in attitude toward him. It didn't make any sense to him either.

XXX

Jaune actually found himself enjoying this little date. Weiss was erratic and occasionally spoke in riddles but she never shouted, got angry, or wronged him. A few times she even said something that made him laugh, but she also kept glancing over her shoulder as if glaring at someone. Jaune never saw anyone. They visited trinket, clothes, and pet shops, which Weiss seemed to appreciate looking around in, but she always insisted on not buying anything. Later they went over to the movie theater, but because Jaune hadn't checked to see which movies were good and which were bad, he just picked an action movie he'd never heard of and hoped for the best. Weiss seemed to be especially interested in the movie, saying that it "was nice to see and understand another culture's values through their art." Jaune however thought that it was mediocre and that the last Spruce Willis movie was much better. After exiting the theater he checked the time. It was six in the evening, meaning that it was now time for the 'dinner part' of their date. A man simply wasn't allowed to go cheap for this part, that would just be insulting, but he trembled at the idea of blowing too much money on eating someplace classy. To his surprise, Weiss told him that she would pay for everything herself, and added that she wouldn't take no for an answer. Upon finding a nice-looking restaurant, they entered, noticed that other couples were here, and got seated. Jaune ordered, but in another surprise, Weiss refused to order anything, not even a drink.

"It feels wrong," Jaune said sounding puzzled, "I mean, I'm eating while the person paying for it all isn't?"

"Don't worry about it." Weiss said with her cheek resting on her hand, "Dating isn't following a script."

Jaune stabbed a fork into his food. "If you say so." he said and then preceded to dig into his meal. He and Weiss went on to small talk about Beacon's other teams and what made some of them exceptional. Jaune gave his opinion on all that came to mind, having little to say about team CRDL. Eventually he got to his own team, then finally team RWBY. Jaune thought he knew where this was going. This being a date, he would say how he felt about each person at the school, saving his sweetheart for last and making his live description of her sound as romantic as possible before they would stare into each other's eyes and eventually kiss. That was how the cliché worked anyways, but Weiss didn't seem interested in hearing any opinions of her. Something else Jaune noticed was that she seemed to never refer to anyone by name. "Did you say 'scythe'?" Jaune asked, "You're talking about Ruby, right?"

"What do you think of her?" Weiss asked with a blank expression.

"Hah, well…" Jaune said, chucking as he spoke, "Give her a few years and she still wouldn't be 'girlfriend material'. She's definitely more of a 'pal'." He took a sip from his glass. "Though I sometimes wonder why she wears a corset at that age…" he mumbled to himself.

"I didn't mean it that way."

"Oh, sorry. You meant her skills?"

" _Her ambition_." Weiss said with a disturbing hiss. She was smiling now.

Jaune slowed his breathing and made a deep smile. "Well, I guess I admire her. She doesn't just believe in happy endings; she tries very hard to make sure that they happen. It goes to show how good a person she is with how hard she works at making the world a better place, and to think that she does it for its own sake, not even for the thrill of it like her sister." was his answer.

"She is quite unusual."

Jaune stared downward thoughtfully and nodded. "Yeah. I chose this because I looked up to my dad so much. But her? She just wants to help people that badly. It almost scares me that a person could be that compassionate." he said with a laugh.

Weiss turned her head to look as teenaged girl at a different table got up and headed towards the bathroom. "Excuse me for a moment." Weiss said as she got up and followed after her, entering the bathroom just behind her. Weiss returned about a minute later.

"It's too bad you didn't order anything. The food here is really good." Jaune said vigorously. He finished eating, left a tip, then he and Weiss left.

Pyrrha, whom had been shadowing them all day, watched from across the street. She was about to resume following them when she heard a scream from the restaurant they had just left. Deciding that she couldn't just ignore it, she jogged into the restaurant and found that the commotion was focused on girl's bathroom. She pushed her way through a rapidly growing crowd, most of whom had their mouths dropped open, until she found herself staring into one of the bathroom stalls. Smears of fresh bloody palm prints were everywhere. She shoved back through the crowd and made her way outside with haste. This was the last straw. If Weiss, or whoever it was indulged in killing randomly, then she couldn't stand back and watch anymore.

XXX

Jaune and Weiss walked side by side along the railing overlooking the ocean at the docks. The sun was setting and it was getting dark now. Jaune grunted as he flexed his arms up. Thankfully Weiss's strange behavior hadn't prevented him from having a good time. "That was pretty fun, but we should probably head back to Beacon now." Jaune said.

"Staying with what's familiar is a great way to not go _crazy_." Weiss said as she sudden stopped and turned around, "What do you think, girl?"

Jaune turned to see who she was talking to, and saw that Pyrrha had been following them only twenty feet behind them. It suddenly made sense why Weiss had been glancing over her shoulder so much earlier. "P- Pyrrha! Have you been watching us this whole time?!" Jaune asked looking flabbergasted. Pyrrha on the other hand looked tense, ready to attack even. "Oh no." Jaune murmured to himself, "I hope she isn't the jealous type."

Pyrrha drew her spear and pointed it forward with one hand. "Jaune! Step away from her!" She sounded concerned for him rather than angry.

Jaune shook his head in disappointment. "C'mon Pyrrha, spying on us?" he said "If you wont trust me to-"

"It's not you that I don't trust." Pyrrha said without taking her eyes off Weiss.

Weiss slowly drew Myrtenaster and held it at the ready, glaring at Pyrrha as if disgusted by her presence. "I've had all I could stomach of you. You are not worthy!" she hissed viciously.

Jaune stepped back, looking from Weiss to Pyrrha nervously. "Excuse me? Ladies? Can you fill me in on what's going on?" he asked.

"I'm going to kill her." 'Weiss' said like it was no big deal.

"You're gonna what?!" was Jaune's reaction.

Pyrrha braced herself, but it seemed that 'Weiss' wanted her to make the first move. Pyrrha ran forward, thrusting her spear as she went, but to her surprise 'Weiss' calmly lowered Myrtenaster, allowing Pyrrha to run her through the chest. Jaune stared wide-eyed. Pyrrha was no less shocked. She simply didn't expect 'Weiss' to just let her do that.

"Just so you know what you're up against." 'Weiss' said with a shrug and drove Myrtenaster forward.

Pyrrha let go of her weapon and leapt back to avoid the attack, raising her shield as whatever she was fighting came at her with a spear still impaled through the chest. It moved fast and struck incredibly hard, sending Pyrrha flying backward and knocking her shield off into the ocean. Lying there on the sidewalk, Pyrrha reached out with her hand. 'Weiss' raised her weapon, intent on finishing her off, but the rapier froze halfway through the swing. Pyrrha's shield came back out of the water and flew to her left hand while her spear was yanked out of 'Weiss's' chest and pulled to her right hand by an unseen force. Normally she wouldn't broadcast her power over magnetism openly, but this fight had made her desperate and a little panicked awfully quick.

'Weiss' pulled on her weapon, noting that it wouldn't budge, and stopped to glance up at it. "So that's what you do." she said. She let go of Myrtenaster, leaving it hanging in the air, and lunged her hand at Pyrrha. A loud 'clang' was heard as Pyrrha's shield stopped a bone-hard blade that had been a hand a mere moment ago.

"This isn't Weiss…" Pyrrha said with disbelief as she defended herself from a flurry of attacks. Instinct took over, shoving aside any questions over what on Earth she was fighting. Suddenly, Jaune made a war cry as he chopped into the creature from behind, bringing his sword down like a hammer. The creature's other arm turned into a whip-like tentacle and slapped him off his feet. It took a moment to put itself back together.

"Would you stay out of this?" the shapeshifting creature asked politely, "I'd be pretty upset if you died."

Jaune got up and charged back at her instantly, shield and sword still in hand. "I don't know what you are or what you want with me, but you're not killing anyone!" he said with determination. He and Pyrrha went on the offensive, slashing, chopping, and hacking away at the creature, causing it to look less and less like a person. It actually seemed to be getting overwhelmed. It stumbled backward and fell over in the middle of the empty street. It now looked like a big wad of flesh if it had been thrown into a pile of swords and then fished out, though it miraculously still remained in one piece. Jaune and Pyrrha both stood hunched over, panting hard and trying to catch their breaths.

"And to think it said that it couldn't stomach _me_!" Pyrrha said incredulously.

"Hey, I still think you're beautiful." Jaune said between breaths.

Suddenly the pile of flesh began to tremble and change form. A two-legged, three-armed eldritch creature with thin tentacles of varying lengths all over its body stood up and 'looked' at them, despite not seeming to have eyes. Its true form?

"Oh man…" Jaune groaned, "I lost my virginity to _that_?"

"You should probably go see a doctor later." Pyrrha said, watching the monster fearfully, "You know, to make sure that you didn't _get anything_ from your one-night stand."

Jaune nodded. "Will do, assuming my date doesn't kill us."

Miriam let out an ear-shattering howl that could be heard from all over the city. Jaune and Pyrrha dropped their weapons and shields to cover their bleeding ears. Every window and street light in the area shattered. When the screaming finally stopped, they clumsily picked up their weapons and slowly stood up in a daze.

"Ow! Ow! _Owww_!" Jaune groaned, "This gal _really_ does not like getting dumped!"

Pyrrha was about to charge the creature again when she heard a bit of commotion in the water behind her… _a lot_ of commotion. She turned around and saw hoards of very different-looking but equally gross creatures climbing over the railing. Looking left and right, she could see lots more of them coming onto land for as far as she could see. How long had they been hanging out in the river waiting for a signal?

Miriam became 'Weiss' again, apparently just to speak to them, though her clothes were torn up now. "Don't be alarmed." she said courteously, "Something far worse is coming. We only want to save you from it." She reverted back to that disgusting creature.

Without needing to say a word, Jaune grabbed Pyrrha by the wrist and they ran.

XXX

Ruby, Blake, and Yang mopped up the last of the Beowolf pack that had tried to ambush them under the cover of night. Ruby and Blake could see through the dark perfectly, and the full moon was bright enough for Yang and Oobleck to see well enough.

"Is everyone okay?" Ruby said in a hurry. Her tone bordered on paranoid.

"We're fine, Ruby. It was just a pack of Beowolves." Blake said reassuringly.

Oobleck came over to them, looking down at a shallow rip in his clothes. "I'm not injured, though one of them managed to cut one of my pockets open." he said, now searching around through the grass from where he stood, "Unfortunately, it was where I kept the ceremonial dagger that we recovered from the temple."

Ruby spotted the dagger immediately and went over to it. She, Blake, and Yang crouched down to get a better look at the dagger where it lay. The grass around it seemed to be shriveling up, turning yellow, and dieing. The circle of dead grass around it was slowly, but still visibly expanding.

"Neat, something for burning my name into someone's lawn." Yang said sarcastically.

"Well, that explains why nothing grew near that temple." Blake said without expression. She picked the dagger up with just her thumb and index finger, clearly disgusted by the thing, and threw it a few feet. The spot of dead grass she had moved it from stopped expanding and a new one formed where the dagger had landed.

"It's just a side effect of its true purpose." Ruby said with her eyes hypnotically locked onto the dagger.

"And what purpose would that be?" Oobleck asked, standing up behind them.

"Umm…" Ruby blinked and shook her head. "Sorry, what?" she asked.

"You said you knew what the dagger's true purpose was." Oobleck said inquisitively.

Ruby looked at the professor. "I did?"

Oobleck recoiled. Being looked at by that eye could make a person go mad. "No. Never mind." he said, sounding a little fidgety.

"It's dark now. Should we make camp again?" Yang asked.

Oobleck shook his head. "Of course not. On foot, Vale is only two to three more hours away from here. We may as well go the rest of the distance and turn in at a hotel at the edge of town if not make a b-line for Beacon Academy itself." he said in one breath.

Ruby nodded. "Alright, but once we get to Vale, we're splitting up." she said, "I'm going after Miriam by myself. The rest of you, just fine some place safe."

"Ruby," Blake spoke up, "if this is about losing Weiss-"

" _She isn't lost yet_!" Ruby said in a monstrous version of her own voice, " _She's alive_ , s _tranded in R'lyeh, but still alive_!"

Blake and Oobleck watched her cautiously. Yang however walked right up to her. "Sis, your mood swings are getting weirder. Earlier today you were bloodthirsty. Now, you're kind of… overprotective?" Yang said fretfully.

Ruby gave a long exhale. She refused to trust herself around her friends. She might be danger to them. "I'm just worried." she said in a normal voice.

"Well, like it or not, you're stuck with your team." Yang said, "We're staying with you till the end."

"But there's more than just Miriam waiting for us! A huge herd of the Ascended are gathered in Vale's harbor right now!"

"Excuse me?!" Blake said heatedly, "Did you hear this from Miriam? How long were you planning to keep this from us?!"

Yang looked between everyone that was here. "We're calling them 'Ascended' now?"

Ruby groaned, gently slapping herself on the head for letting that slip. Since she 'woke up' today, she had been able to tell where those monsters were at anytime. Like with Cthulhu during her time in R'lyeh, she could close her eyes, spin around, stop, then point in their general direction. The Ascended no doubt had this same ability. They had probably used it to find Vale, tracking Miriam to wherever that cruise ship had taken her and follow. "She did." Ruby lied.

"Hey, all the more reason to do this as a team. We don't want you to die either." Yang said.

"That's not what I-" Ruby cut off mid-sentence, paused, then spoke up again. "The Ascended aren't here to kill us, they want to make us like them," she said with a shrug, "some of us anyways."

"Kill, convert, whatever." Yang said.

Before long, the four of them continued on. Ruby remained silent the rest of the way. She wasn't worried about those monsters changing her into one of them. Unlike the others, she was already in the process of it. The thought of her friends turning on her for what she might do scared her too much to talk about it. She just wanted to make sure that they'd be alright, then go on her own and try to figure something out. At least if she failed, no one else would have to get hurt. She would bear the burden herself. It wasn't like her friends could do anything about it. She had to _endure_ it…

There's a point where it tips, there's a point where it breaks, there's a point where it bends, and a point we just can't take… anymore. There's a line that we'll cross, and there's no return. There's a time and a place, no bridges left to burn… anymore. We can't just wait with lives at stake, until they think we're ready. Our enemies are gathering, the storm is growing deadly.

 _Now its time to say goodbye,_

 _To the things we loved,_

 _And the innocence of youth,_

 _How the time seemed to fly,_

 _From our carefree lives,_

 _And the solitude and peace we always knew!_

XXX

To be continued…


	7. Chapter 7: Ain't No Rest

It had been a busy, dreadful day at work. Being an aged wolf-eared faunus bartender at the edge of this town, people gave him as hard a time as frequently as one might expect. At least it still paid well, and his boss was a fair man. The room, which had been full of conversation and energy a moment earlier, had fallen dead silent. After that piercing animal scream followed by a total power outage, everyone just stopped and stared out the window. After some time, a few people started to whisper.

"That was no animal I've ever heard before."

"You think there was a breach?"

"As if this day didn't suck without Grimm inside the city."

"The warning siren must be busted."

"The power is out, genius."

"They have backup generators for them, idiot!"

The bartender remained silent. Having grown up outside the four kingdoms, as was common for faunus like him, he had seen the Creatures of Grimm up close many times, and he knew that they didn't sound anything like whatever made that scream. As loud as it had been, it had also sounded like it was very far away.

Suddenly a man came into view through the window. He was running… no, _sprinting_ along the other side of the street in the opposite direction of the coastline. A pack of… something… was chasing him, not Creatures of Grimm but 'creatures' of some sort, gross ones at that. One of them tackled the man, and he seemed to just disappear. No wait… his head and arms could be seen sticking out of the creature, flailing around in terror as he slowly sank into it.

"Whoa! What are those things?!" someone shouted.

One of the creatures broke off from the pack, jumped into the bar through the window, and began _eating_ some of the screaming patrons. The bartender brought out a huge battle axe which he had been keeping under the counter for emergencies, something he had used for Grimm during his earlier years. Call him paranoid. Vaulting over the counter and holding his axe at the ready seemed to have gotten the creature's attention. It completely froze and stared at him with those four red, snake-like eyes. It should've been impossible to tell, but it felt like it was smiling now.

The faunus bartender came forward swinging. The monster parried to the left, it parried to the right, it dodged every swipe until the axe head finally caught it in the neck and chopped its head off. The body however did not fall over. It just kept coming. The head was an even _more_ disturbing case. It had been thrown toward a man and had grabbed onto his upper body with a mob of thin appendages. It then savagely ripped the man's head off and quickly inserted itself into the neck where the head had been. The man's body started to _walk around_.

The creature's headless original body reached for the bartender's weapon and broke the axe head off the shaft like it were a toy. The bartender stumbled backward into a corner with a tense look on his face. Not that he was fearless; instinct had simply taken over. The creature got ready to pounce and finish him off, just as a huge blade suddenly split it in half from behind. Both halves fell over, revealing a woman… no, _a girl_ in black and red wielding a scythe more than twice her size. A legendary huntress in training?

"Don't go near it! It's not dead!" the girl yelled with her gaze still fixed on the decapitated creature below her. She seemed to have already taken care of the creature's head.

The bartender cautiously tiptoed around the smelly pile of flesh. "Thanks. This old wolf would've kicked the bucket if you didn't come when you did." he said with relief.

The little girl looked at the bartender, her expression that of sadness, like someone whom had to let go of something dear to her. "Don't mention it." she said softly and cheerlessly.

The bartender shivered in silent awe when he noticed the girl's right eye. It was exactly like the eyes of that creature. "You… you're one of them." he whispered without hesitation, "I don't know how but can _I smell_ it on you."

The young huntress shrugged as if unsurprised by his comment. "Yeah, I suppose I am." she said indifferently. She reverted her scythe to a more compact form and headed for the door. "You should get out of the city." she said as she walked, "The Ascended have taken a liking to you."

XXX

Ruby quietly stared down the street further into Vale as Oobleck, Blake, and Yang conversed behind her. "The belligerence of these creatures is truly staggering." Oobleck said in a stressed voice, "This part of Vale is among the furthest from the coast and yet we've already encountered many here."

Blake frowned with unease. She could hear the commotion and inhuman sounds in the distance. "Lets forget about Miriam. We should help people get to safety." she said.

"And where exactly is 'safety' right now?" asked Yang.

"Those things don't seem to have reached Beacon yet." Blake replied, glancing up at the transports flying in and out of the academy, "It's probably the best spot that isn't outside the city."

Oobleck stroked his chin and nodded. "Beacon isn't far from here and is the most likely place where we can get up to speed on the situation. I say we head there right now, ladies." he said quickly.

"We already know what's going on." Ruby said without turning around to face them, "The Ascended are sweeping through Vale like a tidal wave."

"Ascended?" Yang said tiredly, "Miriam used that word a few times but-"

"It's what they call themselves." Ruby said stubbornly, "They interbred with the Great Old One's minions to ascend to a higher state of being. They don't think they're worthy of being called Star-Spawn though." She knew it from first-hand experience. Their thoughts had been perpetually whispering in her ear before she realized it.

"Whatever the case," Oobleck said, "we would be better off coordinating with other teams rather than acting independently. We also have information to share w-"

"You don't need us to tell them what you know." Ruby said firmly, "You said once that you can make a bigger difference with your mind than you can by fighting, right?" She could tell by Oobleck's heart rate and tone of voice that he was no longer confused, but cautious and suspicious of her. Had he figured out what was going on with her? All the more reason to head out. Without a word, she began to walk down the street, but Yang chased after her.

"Hold on, Ruby!" Yang shouted as she grabbed her by the wrist. "You're not seriously still thinking about doing this by y-" She paused and looked down at Ruby's hand. "Your hand… it's as cold as ice!"

Ruby yanked her hand away with her back still turned. "Yang, you and Blake should go with Oobleck. You're both exhausted." she said.

"Well, yeah I'm exhausted." Yang said with bewilderment, "I'm about ready to fall over! You aren't?"

Ruby didn't answer. She was perfectly rested. For crying out loud, she had completely forgotten what it felt like to be tired! "Just get out of here." she said, taking another step but Yang grabbed her wrist again.

"Do you think I haven't noticed that something's going on with you?" Yang shouted, "First you were always angry, now you neither talk nor sound like you anymore," she said with sternness, "and after what happened with Weiss…" she added more sadly.

"There's nothing you can do to help."

"I refuse to believe that."

Ruby spun around looking furious. Her left eye was rolled back and only that petrifying red eye stared Yang down. " _Let go of me_." she said in a demonic voice.

Yang didn't flinch. "Never!" she shouted, "You're stupid if you think I'm just gonna let you walk away!"

"Ruby, we don't want to lose another friend." Blake said, coming beside Yang, "We can't."

"Yeah what she said." Yang said, "what are you planning to do on your own anyways?"

"I'm going after Jaune." Ruby declared. Frankly she wasn't quite sure why she was able to feel his presence. The most likely explanation… was that he had become one of _them_ as well.

Yang shifted to a much calmer demeanor. "Oh, well in that case, we're coming with you. We can get some R and R once we get back to Beacon." she said.

Ruby gave a defeated sigh. "Alright, alright!" she said, sounding like herself again. This could work. As soon as her friends were safe, she could just slip away when no one was looking. "Just don't touch _anything_ that isn't your weapon or the clothes on your back." she warned.

Yang let go and shrugged. "Well duh, that kinda' goes without s-"

"I don't just mean the Ascended." Ruby said very insistently, "Do not touch anything with your bare skin. Not a stray cat, not a pizza someone dropped, not even each other."

"Okay, we get it!" Yang said, seeming a little peeved, "No touchy."

Blake glanced at Ruby's back, noticing that Crescent Rose was there in its compact form. "Ruby, don't you think we should have our weapons out?" she asked, "At all times?"

Ruby shook her head. "No need, I'll tell you when they're near." she said.

XXX

After saying goodbye to Oobleck, Ruby, Blake, and Yang headed further into the city. The moon was no longer visible, now blocked by the low, heavy clouds that hung over the entire city. Whether they were smoke clouds or not was hard to tell. Although the power was out, it was still easy to see with half the city being on fire. The further the girls went, the more horrific the streets and buildings looked. Windows and doors were smashed open revealing interiors filled with blood and other signs of struggle, but there were never any bodies.

Ruby must have started to rebound toward her old self again, because seeing all of this was really making her jittery. She almost wished that she really was in a mental hospital imagining it all… or maybe… she was? Everything that had been happening was so unbelievable, that it just couldn't be real. Maybe it was all just a delusion. No, that couldn't be it. If it was, then she had cracked and gone insane some time ago… but… if she hadn't, then all these horrible things were really happening. It was easy to decide which one was worse.

The girls navigated through the buildings and alleyways. Ruby pointed which way to go, doing her best to also steer them clear of any large groups of Ascended. The herds could no doubt sense Ruby the same way she could sense them, but as long as the girls stayed out of sight, they didn't seem to care. They likely just assumed she was one of them. Things seemed to be going well for a while, as no more than two had to be fought off at a time. Whenever one of them did attack, the girls just chopped its legs off and ran. They moved this way for some time before Blake and Yang started to get impatient.

"Ruby, why are we taking all these twists and turns?" Blake asked, "It's taking us forever to get anywhere." She made a sidelong look at Ruby. "Are you… feeling okay?"

Ruby wanted to say that she was fine. She wanted to say that they were sneaking past the larger packs of Ascended. What actually came out of her mouth was, "Oh don't mind me! I'm just completely maaaad!" she laughed with glee like she just didn't care.

Yang shrugged. "Can't say I blame her for going coo coo, but why did it have to be now?" she murmured.

Blake put a hand to her forehead and sighed. "We're going to move along the streets. We can make better time that way." she said, not phrasing it as a suggestion or request. She and Yang headed out of the alleyway.

Ruby pointed and continued laughing, not feeling at all like herself. She had a strangely hard time snapping out of her momentary mood swing. The whispers in her head were getting so much _louder_. "They're gonna getcha! They're gonna getcha!" she sang.

A series of howls sounded off the moment Blake and Yang stepped out onto the sidewalk. "Oh, I think I get it now." Yang said irritably. An Ascended sprang at her from the side, coming only inches away before Ruby came out of nowhere and chopped it down. Around twenty more creatures were already running toward them. Ruby could sense that even more were on their way here through the alleyways behind them. It wasn't a fight they could run from.

Blake raised Gambol Shroud, which had already been drawn, and switched it to its whip mode. With Ruby spouting nonsense, someone else had to call the shots. "Yang, how many shell do you have left?" she asked.

"Ah, only two magazines." Yang answered, "Want me to sit this out?"

Blake motioned Yang to move back. "Just don't punch them." Blake said before looking to Ruby. "It's up to us, Ruby! Like back in R'lyeh, we kill them by chopping them to tiny pieces or burning them." she said.

Ruby however was pulling on her hair. " _We will not die. Flesh is just a prison for the mind inside_!" she growled. She knew that chopping or burning wouldn't kill the Ascended. They were all connected by some sort of hive mind. Even if one of their bodies was completely destroyed, its mind would still live on and eventually reemerge once more flesh was gathered. A trait they picked up from whatever they interbred with?

The monsters stormed toward the girls, intent on devouring them… no, just Blake and Yang. Blake chopped them up from a distance, using her semblance to leave behind illusions of herself so she could avoid them easier. Yang looked taken aback, watching her sister laugh maniacally as she swung her scythe around. Ruby wielded Crescent Rose with only one hand and as if it were as light as a feather.

" _Let 'er rip_!" Ruby hollered as she rapidly sliced up and down through an Ascended in a blur. She then jumped up, laughing as she did, and kicked it with both feet, splitting it into hundreds of falling pieces. She moved onto the next one.

"Nothing I can do, eh?" Yang said despairingly as she watched the huntress swinging a scythe. She could tell by the look on her face that it was not her sister, at least not for the moment. As Blake was starting on a third creature, 'Ruby' was already chopping down her seventeenth. Suddenly, Ruby moved with lighting speed and caught a marble-sized fragment from one of those creatures an inch away from the side of Yang's face. Yang turned to her head and stared at it for a moment, then recoiled in astonishment. "Ah!" she yipped. Ruby tossed the fragment aside.

"Ruby!" Blake said in amazement, "That didn't burn your hand, borrow into it, or anything!"

Ruby put her scythe away and looked into her untouched, clean open palms. After the last of this pack had been cut down, the whispering finally quieted and she could think clearly again. "I guess so." she said with a deep breath.

"Maybe whatever is happening to you is making you develop a resistance to this stuff." Yang stated with a nod.

Ruby curled her hands into fists and tightened them. At this point, she doubted anything that seemed like a good fortune. "I wish it were that simple…" she whispered to herself.

Blake grimaced at the piles of flesh all over the sidewalk and street. Some of the creature's fragments seemed to slowly be slithering toward them. The rest were recombining. "C'mon, we have to move." she said.

The girls turned and ran through the alleys again with Ruby leading the way. Blake and Yang were exhausted beyond belief, but they kept pushing themselves. "Screw sleep." Yang groaned, "As soon as we return to Beacon, I'm changing up my gauntlets so that they cover my whole hands."

"Hey, do whatever you need to make killing these things easier." Blake said.

"Destroying their bodies is a waste of energy." Ruby said without looking back at them, "They've mutated themselves to be like Cthulhu's Star-Spawn and have become immortal."

"At least they come apart easily." Yang said, "They don't seem to use Aura."

"Yeah… they don't have Aura. They don't need Aura anymore." Ruby said sadly. To think that those creatures had all been people once… "They no longer have souls. They don't need their souls anymore." she whispered.

The girls uneventfully continued for a while longer until they came to a waterfront. At the other side of the street, looking out from the alleyway they stood in, they could see a railing overlooking the ocean at the docks. Ruby could somehow tell that while Jaune was not here, he had been recently. She walked out into the street.

Yang reached out at her sister, trying to keep her voice down. "Wait! Ruby, what are you-" She cut off when she noticed what caught Ruby's attention.

Ruby fell to her knees before Myrtenaster. Seeing it lying there in the middle of the street brought on a whole range of emotions. Slowly, respectfully, she reached down to take Weiss's weapon with one hand below the handle and the other below the end of the blade. She stared down at it for a while. She hugged it.

XXX

Ruby fastened Myrtenaster to her belt and continued on Jaune's trail. He had apparently been in quite a rush, having ran through a whole city block within a minute. After passing through three more blocks, Blake and Yang started whispering to each other, but Ruby could easily overhear them.

"I'm having second thoughts about this." Blake whispered.

"What do you mean?" Yang asked.

"I mean I'm not so sure if she's leading us to Jaune anymore."

"I trust Ruby with my life, but… she hasn't been herself lately."

Without thinking, Ruby spun around and looked directly at Yang. "Look at me Yang. Who do you see?" she asked calmly.

Yang stared at Ruby's face, and unlike earlier, she found the sister she had always known there. She sighed. "Well I-" Suddenly, sounds of rapid gunfire were heard a short distance away.

"People?" Blake said. The girls picked up the pace in the direction of the bullet storm. Upon exiting the alleyways, they found a large group of armed men fighting… no, getting slaughtered by an endless hoard of Ascended.

"Time to go!" Yang announced and the three of them rushed forward.

Ruby noticed that the men were falling back through a subway entrance as they fought. "We're gonna help them escape underground!" Ruby yelled, "Just chop a creature's legs off and move onto the next one! Stay mobile!"

The armed men took notice of the girls, but kept shooting without questioning the extra help. Bullets, shotgun shells, rockets, grenades, blades, and horribly mutated body parts flew all over the place in a dizzy, confusing, roaring storm. No fronts were drawn. People and monsters just fought all around in the smoke, darkness, and rapid flashes. A grenade went off near Ruby, sending a short steel pipe she couldn't guess the origins of flying straight into her gut. She grunted in pain. For some reason, she had been unable to activate her Aura. It seemed to have been growing weaker since her visit to that temple. Feeling she had little to lose, she immediately pulled the beam out of her gut with a gushing noise. Blood didn't spew out, it merely dripped, as if her heart had stopped beating for some time. She adjusted her hoodie to hide the wound and keep her friends from seeing it.

"Let's go! We're blowing it!" one of the men shouted from the stairs of the subway entrance. It became apparent that explosives were laced all over it. These guys were planning on detonating it to keep the creatures from following them.

The deafening racket from all the fighting was somehow drowned out by an even louder thunder coming from down the street. Thousands of more Ascended were stampeding toward them, and Ruby could hear their thoughts.

" _Take them_!"

" _Save them_!"

" _Make them whole_!"

Ruby, Blake, and Yang made a b-line for the subway, running past all the piles of dynamite sticks and explosive barrels. As soon as they and a few more men were clear, the entrance exploded behind them, caving the entrance in. The stomping sounds of those monsters rushing over the ground above them like a flood could still be heard through the concrete.

"Dang! How many of them are there?" Yang said between tired breaths.

Ruby looked around the room. It was more or less what one would expect of a subway station, only there weren't any trains around and the ceiling was pretty high up. Flood lights connected to their own power generators were set up throughout the place. The surviving armed men sat along the walls and leaned against the support beams, a few coughing and most breathing hard. Ruby headed over to whom she assumed was the leader of this group. He had to be considering that fancy attire and how he carried himself. He stood over a table with maps all over it, occasionally pointing at something in the room for someone to take care of. Beside him was a very short girl wearing a pink, brown, and white outfit with a multitude of necklaces hung haphazardly around the neck. "You…" Ruby muttered in astonishment.

Roman Torchwick looked up at her. "Red?" he said, looking very surprised to see her. He seemed especially spooked by her right eye. "You kids just keep getting weirder!"

XXX

To be continued…


	8. Chapter 8: The Hatchet

Team CFVY, or 'coffee' as it was pronounced, sat together on a rooftop exhausted and trying to catch their breaths while herds of those mystery creatures howled at them from the streets below. Coco, Fox, Velvet, and Yatsuhashi each had their share of injuries, but there was nothing too serious. Coco, the team's leader, took the only crippling wound when a chunk of a creature her Gatling gun had torn apart slithered to her and stabbed her through the right ankle. From then on they always double-checked to see if a downed creature was actually going to stay down. In worse shape than their well-being was their resources, which were now dwindling. Coco had become deadweight to the group since she had ran out of ammunition. Fighting close range with her handbag, the portable state of her Gatling gun, as opposed to a weapon with reach like a sword or a spear was out of the question, even were it not for her ankle. Not long ago they had seen a man _sink_ into one of the creatures after touching it with his bare skin. To make things worse, Yatsuhashi's gigantic sword had actually broken upon striking the strong hide of one of the creatures, and was now using a metal pole that had once been part of a stop sign. Regrettably he could only keep the creatures back with it. Still, none of these problems were why they had retreated. They had failed. Hundreds of people in a crowded airfield. All of them gone. Not a single one of the transports even made it off the ground.

Coco Adel removed her aviator sunglasses, noting that the right lens had cracked, and tossed it aside. She put a hand to her forehead and breathed out ruefully. Some regarded team CFVY to be among of the best Beacon had to offer. She hoped they were wrong, else there was no student team that could stand up to these invaders. Given a choice she would take the Creatures of Grim over them any day. She had fought countless battles against Grim in the past, even some where there had been too many for her team to handle, but she had never used this much ammo for a single fight before. Almost none of her shots had missed too. The speed, size, strength, and durability of these creatures were too inconsistent to get a read on them.

"Coco? Are you alright?" Velvet Scarlatina asked, "You're sweating an awful lot."

Coco grunted and began to pull her right boot off. "Relax. A stab through the ankle won't kill me." Coco said as she calmly removed her sock. Her calmness quickly vanished the moment she saw the wound. The skin surrounding where she had been stabbed looked dreadful, possibly turning gangrene. In fact it greatly resembled the flesh of the creatures they had been fighting. With a closer look, she could see that it was visibly spreading out for the rest of her. "Fox!" she shouted, putting a finger to her skin a little above the infection. "Everything below here! Chop it off, now!"

XXX

Blake readied her weapon making a tense, hostile glare at Torchwick. Yang raised her fists with anger and bitterness directed at Neopolitan. Torchwick aimed the base of his cane at them and Neo held her open umbrella forward, both ready to fight them if they needed to. A few of Torchwick's hired henchmen aimed their guns as well.

"How did you find me this time?" Torchwick asked, sounding a bit annoyed. Beside him Neo smiled, blinking as her pink and brown eyes traded colors. Unlike her boss, she seemed pretty excited by the prospect of fighting Ruby and her team.

"Maybe fate is giving me a chance to knock you out again." Blake taunted.

"Well it's about time it finally gave us a break." Yang said. Her eyes turned red and she took her usual fighting stance.

"Wait! Stop!" Ruby shouted, coming between both pairs with a hand raised at each, "We can just go our separate ways! They'll get us for sure if we fight each other now!"

"They?" Torchwick said with an eyebrow raised.

"The million-year-old mutants rampaging through the city." Ruby said, pointing up at the ceiling through which they could still that noisy stampede, "Don't tell me you haven't noticed them."

Torchwick studied Ruby, still aiming his cane at her. "Alright Red, so you know a thing or two about these…" He tried to find the right word. " _Things_."

Ruby put her hands on her hips. "You could say I'm the world's greatest expert on them." she said confidently.

"Hmph, expert?" Torchwick scoffed, "Okay then, what's the-"

"They call themselves 'The Ascended'. They were transformed by some kind of god from who-knows-where called Cthulhu. Each one is really a group of people squashed together to make a poor imitation of Cthulhu's Star Spawn. Even they aren't sure how old they are, but it's probably over a million years." Ruby summarized very quickly, without stuttering, and without pause, "They're here to eat us as a way of 'saving us', some of us anyways. I'm still… umm… figuring out how they choose, but they're selecting people to become new Ascended. Everyone else, they'll either kill or use as 'material' for the new Ascended."

"You sure they don't just take the strong and leave the weak behind?" Torchwick remarked.

Ruby shrugged. "They don't put much value on brute strength." she said, "Now are you calling off your henchmen or not?"

Torchwick frowned at Ruby. He took a moment to look around at the men working for him. They looked exhausted and their numbers were dwindling. He slowly lowered his cane. "Alright, stand down," he said reluctantly, "but keep an eye on them." he quickly added.

Yang lowered her fists. "Wow," she said with surprise, "he's really letting us go?"

Torchwick gave a firm "No, I'm not." He pointed at Ruby, this time with his finger. "You're going to help us get out of the city." he said.

"Like hell we will!" Blake said, keeping her weapon up.

"You've got a deal." Ruby said.

Torchwick directed a smug smile at Blake as he threw his arms up. "You hear that kitten?" he said with delight, "We're gonna be working together."

Blake glared at her team's leader. "Ruby! We can't-"

" _We can't_ let a short-sighted fight screw us over in the long-term!" Ruby shouted at Blake. She looked back and Torchwick and Neo. "That goes for both parties!"

Torchwick nodded, seeming impressed by Ruby. "Okay. I guess we have an understanding then." he said and looked down at one of the maps laid out on the table before him. He pointed along the waterfront. "I say we head west to the dock and-"

"No!" Ruby interrupted, walking up to the other side of the map table, "We can't leave Vale by boat. The coast is exactly where the Ascended are coming from." To her surprise, Torchwick didn't object, lose his temper, or anything. He just nodded thoughtful with his eyes still on the maps, apparently valuing her opinion.

"Okay then," Torchwick said patiently, "where do you suggest we head to?"

"Beacon Academy."

That got an angry reaction. "Hmph, _you would_ say Beacon." Torchwick said with an irritated sigh, "I don't know why I expected any different."

"I don't think you appreciate how bad things are right now." Ruby said, leaning forward with her hands on the table, "I'm sure Ozpin does, and I'm willing to vouch for you when we see him."

Torchwick gritted his teeth at Ruby. "Fine-"

" _But only_ if we pick up someone, and anyone with him, along the way." Ruby threw in.

Torchwick looked Ruby in the eye as he put a cigar in his mouth and brought out a lighter. "Tread carefully, Red. You're driving a steep bargain." he said, lighting his cigar. It was the first time someone didn't freak out at that scary right eye. Ruby stepped back from the table and walked back to her friends.

"Wow sis, you're quite a negotiator," Yang said with mild amazement, "but you didn't have to make up that stuff about the Ascended selecting certain people."

"I didn't make anything up." Ruby said.

XXX

It was rather impressive seeing just how much supplies and equipment Torchwick had down here. Within crates stacked throughout the room, there were more guns than there were people to use them and more ammo than anyone could carry, though they unfortunately weren't compatible with Yang's Ember Celica. There was even a Atlesian Paladin-290 battle-suit down here, an enormous mecha Torchwick had once piloted to fight Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang with before. Perhaps most gratifying to see, for Blake and Yang anyways, were the ration crates. They immediately helped themselves to some food but Ruby refused to eat. Now that her friend's backs were turned, she pulled up her hoodie to privately look at that hole through her gut, but found that it was no longer there. It was just a really nasty scar now. A while later, after the surface above them had quieted down, Neopolitan approached Yang, pulling a cart with a small crate on it to her.

"What do you want?" Yang asked with hostility.

Neo bowed politely. She squatted over the crate, setting her umbrella down beside it, and opened it, revealing that it was full of scrap metal. She reached into it with both hands and stood up holding two metal gloves. Each one, when worn, would cover the whole hand and come up near the elbow. She handed them to Yang with a mocking humbleness.

Yang huffed. "I guess I can paint them yellow later." she said bitterly. She took the metal gloves and began removing Ember Celica.

Neo raised a finger, apparently remembering something, then reached into her back pocket and handed an earphone to Ruby.

Ruby accepted the earphone. "Uh, thanks?" she said.

Neo patted Ruby on the shoulder and winked. She turned to walk away.

Ruby tried the earphone on, putting it onto her right ear and adjusting the mic so that it ran past her cheek and ended at the corner of her lip. Yang put Ember Celica back on, wearing them over the metal gauntlets. "I got to admit," Yang said grudgingly, "that Torchwick guy sure is resourceful."

"He'll betray us the moment he no longer needs us." Blake said, munching on another ration bar, "I hope you realize this, Ruby."

"He calls himself a professional." Ruby said, "He wont try anything as long as we're still the highest bidder."

"He'll throw in with _the safest_ bidder." Yang warned, "He knows we don't trust him and his ego wont let him go soft on us."

Ruby scratched her head. "I was able to reason with him earlier. Maybe he'll surprise us if we give him a chance." she said.

"You always will be naïve, Ruby." Blake said sighing.

"Well I-" Ruby's hand went to her right eye upon feeling an unimaginable pain there. " _Argh_!" she screeched.

"What is it, Ruby?! What's wrong?!" Yang said, almost reaching for her sister.

Ruby threw her hand down. "It's nothing!" she lied. Her eye was _burning_. It took every ounce of self-control to not react. "I just… have to… uh… take a dump!" She smiled, pointing over her shoulder, and turned to leave.

Yang looked on with her hands on her hips, unconvinced. "Yeah, cause you had a meat loaf on the way here." she said sarcastically.

Ruby limped and stumbled through the room, keeping her hands in check by crossing her arms and holding onto herself as tightly as she could. She came before one of Torchwick's henchmen. "Is there a toilet around here?" she asked him, shivering like she was cold or sick.

The man winced at her and shook his head. "No bathrooms around here." he said.

Another henchman pointed down one of the dark subway tunnels. "Just take care of business down there." he said modestly, "It's what I just did."

Ruby went straight for the tunnel, entering it and going much deeper than she really needed to. She finally stopped when there was nothing but darkness and the unknown. Brief flashes of strange creatures, of other worlds, of things and places impossible to describe with such a limited vocabulary came and went. She practically screamed as she vomited onto the ground, upchucking fluid rather than chunks of food as she hadn't eaten for a while. She stumbled backwards and fell on her back, shaking uncontrollably in an apparent seizure.

 _A blind idiot_ _… t_ _he image of the materialistic universe_ _…_ _unable to see nor comprehend itself_ _…_ _there was no cosmic mind to do so._

With her right hand, Ruby grabbed the railing of the track so hard that it crumpled inward like paper. In her mad spasms her hand skidded back and forth. Then… it finally stopped. She lied there alone, breathing hard but without a drop of sweat on her forehead. She held her palm above her face to look at it and found that some of the skin had… peeled off… not revealing red muscle, but the same disgusting flesh that identified the Ascended. She threw her hand aside and stared up at nothing. "Makes sense." she said to no one. Underneath, she was becoming one of them. Their innards healed, but the outside… the skin… the face… they didn't. Maybe that was why they looked the way they did. Their original faces had deteriorated from spending all that time under the ocean. "Doomed to become a monster and eat people. I'd love to say that there's worse ways to go." she joked. Was it better to just run out on her team right now? No, rolling with Torchwick wasn't good enough for 'safe' and the matter with Jaune hadn't been resolved yet.

"Alright boys and girls, grab as much as you can carry without getting weighed down! We're moving out in ten minutes!" Torchwick's voice echoed down the tunnel all the way from subway station. Normally it would have been too far off to overhear, but Ruby's hearing was now anything but normal. "Fall behind and you're left behind!" Torchwick added.

Ruby stood up and tried to relax, breathing in and out. "Just a little longer." she said and headed back toward the subway station.

"'A little longer' for what?" Yang said angrily.

Ruby jumped back in surprise upon almost bumping into her older sister. "Huh?! Yang?!" she squeaked, "Have you ever heard of privacy?!"

Yang crossed her arms and made the most serious look. "I saw all that, you know." she said.

"I don't want to talk about it." Ruby said as she tried to walk past Yang, but was stopped by a hand to the shoulder.

"Then just talk to me." Yang said with resolve, "You can't keep this to yourself. You can't put us at a distance like this! Look at what it's doing to you!"

"I've noticed. It's changed me a lot." Ruby said with no emotion, "Doesn't have to change you too." She brushed Yang's hand off and started walking.

Yang looked on with a worried expression. "How can you just walk away with a straight face?" she asked.

Ruby just kept walking. She did indeed feel unusually calm, and she hated it. "Letting go is easy for me. I've always done things for the greater good rather than cheap thrills." she said.

XXX

The group headed down the tunnel opposite of the one Ruby had just 'taken care of business' in. Ruby led the way with Torchwick piloting his mecha at her back and everyone else on foot behind him. They move this way for around twenty or thirty minutes until Ruby found a spot where she didn't sense any Ascended in the streets above. She stopped and pointed upward with her right hand, which she now wore a black leather glove over. "Right there." she said into her earphone's mic.

"Will do." Torchwick's relaxed voice came in on the earphone. The Atlesian Paladin-290 mecha broke through the concrete ceiling and came outside onto the street. Everyone else walked up the ramp created from the debris and spread out. Ruby shouldered her huge scythe and scanned the area. This part of town was quiet, it had been deserted before they bursted out of the ground. A traffic jam of empty cars littered the street, buildings along both sides of the street seemed to have burned down to piles of charcoal, puddles of blood were everywhere, and there were no bodies.

"How is it that these things never leave corpses?" one of the men asked.

"Cause they eat people." another one answered.

"Yeah but… wouldn't they leave behind guts or something?"

A third one butted in. "What makes you think they have to?"

"I'm just saying, maybe these buggers melt people with their acid breath."

"Acid is not how they make us vanish without a trace. I could tell when we were fighting them earlier." a forth henchman said.

"And exactly how were you able to tell?"

"Because I aced my high school chemistry class." There was a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"Chemistry? Uh… that's the one with the shapes, right?" the first henchman asked. About six other henchmen laughed at him.

"Alright Red," Torchwick said over the radio, "which way?"

Ruby closed her eyes to concentrate. She could feel the presence of so many Ascended in the distance. It took her a moment to single out the one she was looking for. She opened her eyes and pointed down the street. "He's that way." she said.

"He?" Torchwick scoffed irritably, "What? Are we looking for your boyfriend?"

"I'll never have one for my entire _human_ life." Ruby said, sounding sarcastically glad of it. Torchwick drove his robot forward, bowling through the cars and knocking them aside to clear a path. "Plow straight through those buildings at the T intersection!" Ruby yelled as she and the others ran after the mecha.

"Hmph, not such a goody two-shoes after all." Torchwick said with enjoyment. A loud crash was heard as the robot smashed through the buildings like a wrecking ball.

XXX

The rooftops weren't so safe after all. As it turned out, many of these creatures, possibly all of them, could sprout wings and fly. They simply didn't choose to right away. An amateur wouldn't realize it, but the members of team CFVY could tell that they had lasted this long only because these creatures were toying with them. Velvet and Yatsuhashi retreated into a small convenience store with Fox carrying Coco close behind them, not that it was a good spot to defend from. They were just too tired to run anymore. Cornering themselves and letting those things come at them from one direction was at least _a little_ better than getting surrounded for the hundredth time. Fox set Coco down in the corner, exhausted from carrying her everywhere. They would've had Yatsuhashi do it but he was the only one that could still fight these monsters off.

"We need to replace the bandages." Coco said as she inspected the blood-soaked dressing on her stump leg. Keeping her calm and disciplined demeanor was taking some real effort now, but for her team's sake she had to keep it together, or at least look like she was. Velvet set down the team's first-aid kit and got to work right away. Before even five minutes had passed, a herd of the eldritch creatures had gathered outside seemingly out of nowhere. Just one entered the store while the rest eagerly watched. Didn't want to make it too easy eh?

"Looks like they want a show." Yatsuhashi said. He swung the metal pole to no effect and was knocked aside. Coco then threw a homemade pipe bomb which plopped into the creature like its skin was made of jello. The creature exploded into a thousand pieces, one of which landed onto Coco's cheek and quickly sank in. She pulled out a combat knife and gouged it out without hesitation. Dropping the knife, she immediately covered the open wound with her hand as streams of blood rushed down from between her fingers. The creatures all seemed to… laugh at them?

"That was the last one, wasn't it?" Fox said with a groan.

"That was the last one." was Coco's response.

Suddenly, the mystery creatures all turned their attention to something coming behind them. Rescue? No, the Creatures of Grimm! The entire horde of gross monsters, even the one that had just exploded and reformed itself, seemed to completely forget about team CFVY and charged the newcomers. The stampede of mystery monsters clashed against the tidal wave of Beowolves, Ursai, Boarbatusks, and Death Stalkers, ripping each other apart in a mad frenzy.

"Grimm? Here?!" Velvet said in shock.

"Well, the power has been out, the city is in chaos, and there's plenty of negative emotion to go around." Coco said feeling oddly relieved.

XXX

To be continued…


	9. Chapter 9: Implacable

Jaune and Pyrrha moved quickly and quietly through one of the many factories of Vale's industrial district. The place was a dark jungle of steel beams, catwalks, and conveyer belts going up, down, into big machines, and into small machines.

"There's no use hiding." Miriam said in Weiss's voice, walking around the factory in the form of a monster, "It's not like I can't tell where you are from the other side of Remnant!"

Jaune pulled Pyrrha by the wrist as they ran through the factory. "How are you even able to see in here?" Pyrrha asked between breaths.

"What do you mean? It's not that dark." Jaune said, feeling much less tired.

"If you say so." Pyrrha said with a groan. She and Jaune stopped and sat behind a large machine, more for a quick rest than to hide. No matter how far they ran, this monster somehow just kept on finding them. Attacking it had proven pointless, it just kept regenerating. It wasn't interested in talking anymore, it seemed to have had enough with savoring the kill.

Jaune slammed a fist onto his knee. He had thought long and hard, but he just couldn't see a way to win. If he had just the smallest bit of information, not even a weakness, just some understanding of how it worked or what motivated it, then at least he would have something to work with. "Pyrrha, I think our only chance is if I stay behind and keep it busy so you can escape." Jaune said in a defeated tone.

Pyrrha shook her head defiantly. "No way, Jaune. I'm never-"

"If you don't go we'll both be killed," Jaune said more harshly, "or whatever the heck it does to people."

"I wont leave a comrade behind." Pyrrha said in as firm a posture as she could manage, "I'd rather die."

Jaune sighed. "Die young or die alone. I don't know which is worse." he said resentfully. Pyrrha always had been selfless to a fault. He should have expected this of her.

"Shall we take the warrior's way out?" Pyrrha asked as she raised her spear.

"No, no no!" Jaune hooted in frustration. Sacrificing himself for another, that he could do. Dieing in a fruitless but heroic last stand, he would never accept that. He didn't have many options though, with how this creature always knew where he was… "Hmm…" Where _he_ was. It was just a hunch, but spending all that time with the creature may have allowed it to develop a way to track him. That would explain the recent stomach aches. Come to think of it, when out of the creature's sight, he could somehow tell that it always moved straight for him during any brief moments when he and Pyrrha were separated. Considering its distaste for Pyrrha, he could think of only one explanation that fit. "Pyrrha, we need to split up." Jaune said with a sudden enthusiasm.

"Jaune, are you insa-" Pyrrha stopped talking and sighed. "I guess I couldn't blame you if you _have_ gone insane." she said.

Jaune raised a hand patiently. "No, listen to me. You're not running, but we _are_ splitting up." he said.

Pyrrha made a curious look. "Was that a riddle?" she asked.

Jaune peeked around the corner of the machine. The creature that was hunting them would be upon them soon. "I think it can only tell where _I_ am. Just me." Jaune said. He leaned over to whisper into Pyrrha's ear. "Now listen closely."

"This is getting tiresome." Miriam called out in a courteous tone as she drew closer, "We get to do this only once every couple-hundred-thousand years, so that's saying a lot!" She came around a corner to find Jaune standing there alone.

"Uh, hi there… pretty lady." Jaune said awkwardly with his sword and shield raised. Instead of using Weiss's voice again, the monster let out a thunderous, powerful roar that lasted for about ten seconds. Jaune recoiled and his courage faltered. "Hold it together, Jaune." he whispered to himself, "This thing is totally into you. It wants to get Pyrrha, not you." The creature growled like a hungry beast and lunged at him. "Ughaaaa!" Jaune whined in panic and ran with the monster in hot pursuit. He squeezed through a tangle of beams, pipes, and conveyer belts that the creature wouldn't be able to fit through, but it tore through them like they were nothing. Jaune fled up a flight of stairs and ran down a long industrial catwalk. Miriam grabbed onto the beams, railings, and machines and chased him by traveling along the clutter around it like a jumping spider. Jaune suddenly stopped and turned to face Miriam with a large, wide vat of molten steel straight below them. It had to be against regulations or something, but he didn't have the luxury to question the catwalk's bad placement. As the creature drew closer, one of its arms was sudden shot off. It stopped and turned its head to see Pyrrha on a parallel catwalk, crouched down with her weapon in its rifle form and firing at the creature's limbs and anything it tried to hold onto. The creature, for some reason, didn't seem to care that it was suddenly falling into the pit of molten steel. It landed with a loud, steaming splash and slowly sank in without bothering to struggle much.

"You were right!" Pyrrha shouted in triumph, "It really can't tell where I am!"

Jaune raised a hand straight up as he watched the creature melt, making a thumbs-up gesture, and slowly sank his hand down. "Hasta la vista, baby." he said in a pretend Austrian accent. He rallied with Pyrrha and they walked through the factory together.

"Alright Jaune, what's the next step?" Pyrrha asked.

"We can't just leave the city on foot. Either we find a place where people are holding out or we find transportation." Jaune said thoughtfully.

"Okay, got it." Pyrrha said. They came to a large steel double-door, a way out of this place, and opened it. Their eyes went wide when they found what was waiting for them on the other side. A large, horribly misshapen creature, identical to the one that had just fallen into the molten steel.

" _Should I be flattered that you called me 'baby' in this form_?" Miriam joked. She spoke in a hideous voice, like a thousand needles in one's ear, and sounded neither male nor female. " _You've gone and destroyed my previous body, along with that girl's arm. I rather liked her form, but I suppose I'll have to find another one_." It leaned closer to Jaune. " _Is there by any chance another girl you fancy_?" It seemed to glare at Pyrrha. " _Besides that one of course_."

XXX

Team CRDL had been hiding out in a meat locker almost since this catastrophe began. Cardin Winchester, the team's leader, would be the first to admit that the team was often lazy, but he wasn't about to let anyone call them cowards again. They had fought one of these creatures back at the start of it all, but it just kept getting up no matter how hard they pounded it, and so they gave up and ran. When it seemed like things had finally settled down outside, Cardin, Russel, Dove, and Sky headed out into the deserted street. The place looked like it had been a war zone.

"You think another kingdom declared war and dropped some kind of bio-weapon on us? Atlas Maybe?" Sky Lark said as he looked around.

"Like this? Nah." Russel Thrush said, "My money is on a rogue mad scientist."

"You two, shut it." Cardin said as he shouldered his mace, "One of those things might be nea-" He was cut off when he heard a roar nearby. With frightened expressions, the boys of team CRDL turned to look at what made the roar and found not one of those strange creatures, but an Ursa variant of the Grimm. It charge right at them. "Hah! C'mon!" Cardin shouted as he raised his mace with one hand and ran to meet it, "I'm not afraid of you!" The Ursa lunged but Cardin smashed its chin with a heavy upward swing, knocking it onto its back. He finished it off with one more swing of his mace like a hammer to a nail. Good thing this one was normal-sized.

"It feels weird, thinking of the Grimm as the least of our problems." Dove said softly.

Cardin took notice of the distant racket that echoed from no clear direction. He listened more carefully and could tell that it was sounds of combat, not the gunfire kind, but rather what one would expect from thousands of animals tearing each other apart in a bloody melee. "They might even be our saviors. Accidental ones anyways." Cardin said.

"Can we get a move on already?" Sky said nervously.

"A 'move on'? Where do we even go?" Russel said.

"We find someone that knows what's going on." Cardin announced, "You can't do much else when you're flying blind. C'mon." He picked a random direction and led the way down the sidewalk. The young men did their best to avoid any monster fight clubs, keeping their heads down and carefully checking around every corner. They moved through four blocks this way, but broke into a run when they heard a slimy, definitely-not-a-Grimm sounding roar down the block behind them.

"I… I don't think it's following us." Russel said as he looked over his shoulder.

"We're not taking any chances!" Cardin said tensely. Given his strong, resilient, but slow fighting style, running like this was a pain. He ran around the corner of another building and bonked heads with someone whom also seemed to be fleeing from something. He fell on his bottom, rubbing his head in a daze before looking at whoever he had just bumped into. "Jauney-boy?" Cardin said in disbelief.

"Cardin?!" Jaune yelled with both hands covering his head. A panicked-looking Pyrrha came running around the same corner followed shortly by a two-legged, three-armed eldritch creature that screamed at them like a banshee.

"Crap! Crap! Crap!" Cardin cried as he struggled to get up. This creature looked far more imposing than the other ones he had seen earlier. Some kind of elite, major, or alpha of the species? Cardin, Russel, Dove, Sky, Pyrrha, and Jaune ran away as fast as they could. One of the many tentacles on the creature's body stretched forward and caught Russel around the waist like a lasso, yanking him off his feat. The creature held him with its three arms, inspecting him for a moment before ripping him apart in three directions, apparently uninterested in devouring him. The creature went for Cardin next, easily catching up to him and about to grab him when it was suddenly blown away in a fiery explosion.

"Over here!" Coco Adel shouted from down the street. She had an arm around her teammate Fox, using him as a crutch to balance herself. Over her other arm was a huge rocket launcher. She fired another shot, blowing the creature apart the moment it had speedily come back together. It reformed much faster this time and pounced onto Sky, once again preferring to kill rather than absorb. It was blasted to pieces for a third time, then a forth, then a fifth. Against all odds, it still managed to keep up with its prey as it repeatedly kept blowing up and coming back together.

"What's it gonna take to stop this guy?!" Cardin cried in terror.

"That's not a guy! It's a girl!" Jaune shouted frantically, "Uh, erm… I mean it's only made of girls but… ugh! You know what? Never mind!"

"It's made of what?!" Cardin yelled in confusion. Had the situation been different, he would have asked Jaune how he knew this.

"Hurry it up! We don't have many rockets left!" Coco shouted as Velvet loaded another rocket into the launcher for her. Beside her, Yatsuhashi stood near the steel open double-doors of a warehouse and was waving at Jaune, Pyrrha, Cardin, and Dove to come closer. Coco fired her last shot and dropped the launcher. Fox helped her move into the building and were quickly followed in by Velvet and other huntsmen in training. Yatsuhashi slammed the door at the last possible second and barred it with a steel pole. The creature did _not_ slam into door. Everything just fell silent.

"Oh great…" Cardin groaned when he saw Velvet Scarlatina. She was the last person he wanted to be indebted to. Still, she and her team had gotten off their asses to save his. He muttered an indifferent "thanks" to her.

Velvet looked surprised, then smiled. "You're welcome!" she chirped

XXX

Jaune looked around the warehouse, not feeling the least bit tired as the others tried to catch their breaths. The place was stacked to the ceiling with cardboard boxes, not likely to have anything they could use. The walls were made of brick, a strong material to be sure, but not nearly enough to keep something like Miriam out. It was a wonder why she just quit after Yatsuhashi slammed the door on her.

Cardin and Dove sat against a stack of boxes, looking as gloomy as they were angry. "She, it, whatever that thing was… it got Russel and Sky!" Cardin said, slamming a fist against the boxes at his back.

Jaune eyed Coco's leg. It was just a stump with bandages at the end. "What the heck happened to you?" he asked her.

"My leg? It had to be amputated." Coco said like it was no big deal.

Jaune could tell by Coco's heart rate and pupil dilation that she wasn't nearly as calm as she let on, though it was a wonder to him how he was able to tell so easily. "Hmph, may the leader of team CFVY never be called indecisive." he said offhandedly.

"That beastie hasn't tried to get in. Do you think it moved on?" Velvet asked.

"No way." Jaune said, shaking his head, "She never gets tired and she never gives up. She'll chase us to the ends of the earth if she has to."

"How do you know so much about that thing anyways?" Cardin asked.

"He sort of had a one-night stand with it." Pyrrha said. Everyone recoiled in dumbfounded astonishment, save for Jaune whom just shrugged.

"I don't feel like talking about it." Jaune said.

Fox seemed rather amused. "Hah, maybe you can woo her and bring her over to our side." he joked.

Jaune sighed and added that he "wouldn't count on it." He flinched when he heard the sound of metal rattling. He looked up and saw that the grating for a ventilation shaft in the wall was missing. It was too small for Miriam to fit through, but given that she could change shape, he wasn't about to assume that she couldn't fit through it.

"Is something the matter?" Velvet asked.

"We need to get moving." Jaune said, gesturing to everyone that they followed him.

"Who made you the leader?" Cardin asked rudely.

"The creature that's chasing us did. I have the most experience with it." Jaune answered.

"And all you've done is run from it. Am I correct?" Coco said.

"Well yeah… I mean, no." Jaune stuttered, "Fighting it would be a complete waste anyways."

"I've killed plenty of these creatures already." Coco said, "They stay down when cut into small enough pieces."

Jaune shook his head. "This one wont." he said, "You saw how it handled those rockets you blasted it with. Besides, we don't have anything left to fight it with."

Coco glared at Jaune. Not that her eyes could be seen behind those sunglasses, but it seemed like she wasn't convinced. "Alright, fine." she said, "There's a back entrance. We can go out through there."

"The back." Jaune said with a nod, "Sounds good." The eight of them walked through the dark warehouse together. While Pyrrha and team CFVY seemed level-headed enough, Cardin and Dove looked tense. It worried Jaune. People could be rash when they were angry.

"What's in all these boxes?" Pyrrha asked as she inspected some of the containers around them. Some were metal crates.

"Canned foods, ration bars, some even have military-grade weapons and ammo in them." Coco said with an arm around Fox.

Pyrrha cocked an eyebrow in surprise. "What? In the middle of the industrial district? You're kidding right?" she said with a nervous chuckle.

"It's where I got that rocket launcher you saw earlier." Coco said. She glanced at the dust gathered over the floor, noting that it stopped in perfect squares of clean areas where boxes had clearly once been. "I'm under the impression that some were moved recently. Unfortunately for us, there isn't much left." she added.

Jaune froze when he thought he noticed movement up ahead. He was certain that he'd just seen Miriam crawling along the ceiling like a spider before slithering back into the darkness and out of his view. "It's in the building!" Jaune cried with his voice lowered.

"How can you tell?" Coco asked.

Velvet's bunny ears twitched a little. "I'm sure we'd hear if it broke through one of the doors, windows, or walls." she said.

Jaune scanned the ceiling ahead of them, but couldn't find it. He turned around and looked over at Cardin. Slowly he began to draw his sword. "Umm, Jauney-boy?" Cardin said guardedly. Jaune ran at him with his sword and shield up. "What?! What are you-" _Clang_. Miriam had appeared beside Cardin, and her attack meant for him was stopped by Jaune's shield.

"What? How did it get in here?!" Velvet cried.

"Go! I'll hold it off!" Jaune shouted, "I'll catch up with you guys!" He was lying of course. The act of 'catching up' with them would only lead it to them again. However, no one ran. Fox moved in with his dual arm-blades, slicing through it in a flurry, but he may as well have been slicing through water. Apparently forgetting how dangerous this creature was, Cardin and Dove attacked with everything they had as well. Coco seemed to be giving orders to her team with hand signals that Jaune couldn't interpret.

"You're gonna pay for killing Russel and Sky!" Cardin shouted.

Jaune was knocked off his feat and sent sliding over the floor until he stopped against another stack of boxes. "Wait!" he shouted as he got up, "You can't kill it! All you can do is run!" No one seemed to hear him as Pyrrha, Fox, Yatsuhashi, Cardin, and Dove attacked Miriam all at once. Perhaps this is what they got for having three teams across eight people in one place. Too many of them thought they were in charge.

"You said it would chase us to the ends of the earth!" Coco said as she leaned against one of the building's support beams. She seemed to be willing to hear Jaune out, but it was clear that she didn't value his judgment very much. "Where better to fight it than right here?" she murmured as she opened a metal crate beside her.

The hunters tore, cut, and bashed Miriam to kingdom come, but as none of them had the means to finish her off, it would only be a matter of time before she got a lucky hit on one of them. Luck however seemed to be on the hunter's side for the moment, as Fox managed to cut Miriam down the center and open her torso up. "There, just like you wanted!" Fox yelled.

"Fire in the hole!" Coco shouted as she tossed a frag grenade she had just taken from one of the crates. The hunters dived away from the creature as a grenade landed inside its open torso. The upper half of it exploded and pieces of it flew everywhere, one of which Velvet caught in an open empty steel crate she was holding up. She immediately closed it shut, put it down, and picked up another one.

"Again!" Coco yelled. This time Pyrrha cut Miriam open and another grenade went in. There was another explosion and Velvet caught another piece in a box.

"Can you help us out here?" Velvet said to Jaune.

"Umm, okay!" Jaune said as he looked at all the pieces of Miriam slithering around. He stabbed his sword into one of them then shook it off into a crate. Miriam grew smaller and smaller as the hunters continuously kept blowing her up and throwing the pieces into different boxes. After the twenty-second grenade, the entirety of Miriam was finally locked away.

"Hah! That's what you get you stupid, ugly… whatever the heck you are!" Cardin yelled at one of the crates.

Pyrrha gave a sigh of relief. "We can't kill it. At least we can disable it." she said

"And you wanted to run away." Fox said giving Jaune a pompous nudge.

"Well I don't take it back. I'd hate to rain on the parade, but all that work amounted to nothing." Jaune said, not sharing the same enthusiasm. He picked up one of the crates and grabbed onto the lid.

Coco, using one hand to hold onto the support beam beside her to stand up, reached out at Jaune with her other hand and shouted, "Wait! What are you-" Jaune opened the crate and showed that the flesh inside had become a shriveled, inanimate husk.

"That's odd. What happened to it?" Velvet asked.

"She moved to another body made from flesh that her friends gathered in advance." Jaune said dolefully. Again, he wasn't quite sure how he knew so much. It was like he could hear voices that were telling him all this. Without really realizing it, he had also started to think of this creature as a 'she' rather than an 'it'. "Given all the people they've eaten in Vale, she should have an unlimited supply of new bodies." He closed the box again and dropped it. "She'll come after us again, very soon I'm sure."

"Want to try wooing her when she does?" Fox asked. He didn't sound like he was joking.

"Believe it or not, I tried that." Jaune said with frustration. His demeanor went to that of panic when the wall behind him suddenly burst inward. " _Ahhhh_!" he cried as he leapt back. A huge robot mecha-suit had broken through the wall and was followed in by a squadron of heavily-armed people. The hunters had their weapons up for only a moment before lowering them. Never mind that these people weren't shooting at them. They were at least people.

"Oh look, kids are helping themselves to one of my storehouses." the pilot of the robot scoffed on its loudspeaker.

"What do you want us to do with them, mister Torchwick sir?" a man aiming his rifle asked.

"Torchwick?" Jaune repeated.

" _We're taking them with us! They're the ones we've been looking for! Hehehahahaha_!" a henchgirl cackled in a horrible voice, much like that of Miriam's. The hunters quickly raised their weapons again in alarm.

"Wait a minute…" Jaune said, lowing his sword, "is that…" he squinted at whom he had first assumed was one of Torchwick's people as she came closer. It was a little girl in black and red, wielding a scythe twice her size. "Ruby?!" Jaune shouted. He wanted to smile, but couldn't upon getting a better look at her face.

Ruby's left eye was rolled back so that the pupil wasn't visible. Her right eye was open wider than what should have been possible for a human being. She smiled like a hungry shark. " _Jaune_." she hissed.

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **Not sure I like how this chapter turned out, but I've taken long enough as it is.**


	10. Chapter 10: Fade Away

Ruby regained her senses, already standing up straight in a bullhead. Her time guiding Torchwick around the streets of Vale as they looked for Jaune had been a blur, hopefully uneventful too, but somehow she was still fully aware that she, her friends, Torchwick, and his 'friends' had boarded around a dozen air transports and were about to arrive at Beacon Academy, Vale's largest, and possibly only safe zone. The dropships touched down onto the landing zone and Ruby stepped off. It was a straight shot from here to Beacon. It seemed like such a long time had passed since she and Yang admired this same view back on their first day here. She was even further reminded of that day when Jaune came running off the bullhead past her with a hand over his mouth. "There's vomit-boy. I just need to explode to complete the picture." Ruby said as she watched Jaune hurl over the side. Yang came beside Ruby, looking at her rather than the view with a surprised look on her face, perhaps noting that Ruby sounded like herself again.

"I'd prefer crater-face to that eye." Yang mumbled softly. It sounded like something she didn't intend for Ruby to hear.

"The whole city must be here." Blake said, coming beside them. Beacon thankfully looked untouched, but was still hard to recognize for other reasons. Aside from it being nighttime, there were refugees, armed guards, and tents all over the Academy grounds. The place seemed to be quite busy inside and out.

"What is all this?" came a cranky voice, "Explain yourselves!" Glynda Goodwitch came speed-walking toward them, looking as grumpy and strict as ever.

"Just helping some friends in need." Yang said tiredly. She glanced over at Coco as Fox helped her walk by.

Ms. Goodwitch's expression darkened at someone coming behind the girls. "You've got a questionable taste in 'friends'." she said.

Roman Torchwick came walking out of one of the transports and stopped beside Blake with his cane over his shoulder. The security guards aimed their guns at him and he just smiled back. "Alright Red, you gonna' fulfill _your_ end of the bargain?" Torchwick said.

Goodwitch glared at Ruby. "You made a deal with this _criminal_?" she said heatedly.

"Yes, he is a criminal," Ruby said firmly, acting very confrontational, "but with all that's going on now," she shrugged, "not that important. At least he isn't one of _them_."

"He's a threat to the four kingdoms just the same." Goodwitch said. She adjusted her glasses as she and Ruby began a staring contest.

"Sure, he's not very nice, but we need all the help we can get. I mean, he's helped us already. Were it not for him, none of us would've made it back." Ruby said. She didn't blink and remained as relaxed as could be. Normally, Ms. Goodwitch's strict gaze would have intimidated her, but after all she had seen in the last few days, it didn't scare her in the slightest. "Your hands are full without trying to arrest him, right?" she added.

Ms. Goodwitch blinked and looked away from Ruby, apparently buying her argument, then studied Torchwick for a moment. "Captain, keep a close eye on this criminal and his underlings." Goodwitch said to one of the guards with her, "Make sure they stay in one group. You and your men are authorized to deal with them should you deem it necessary." She turned and walked away. The guards remained.

Torchwick patted Ruby on the shoulder as he nodded. "Very good, Red." he said with smug satisfaction, "You'd make a great lackey. Let me know if you ever get bored of this noise and I'll let you come work for me." Ruby didn't respond. She just watched quietly as Torchwick and his people headed toward Beacon. Neopolitan gave Ruby a friendly smile and thumbs-up as she walked by.

"I know you made a deal," Blake whispered to Ruby, "but did you have to defend him so intensely?"

Ruby just shrugged. "Hmph." It wasn't that she tried hard. The changes she had been going through just hardened her.

XXX

Beacon's hallways were packed with people. Hunters and Vale's armed-forces walked both ways while civilians wrapped in blankets lined the walls to no end. It was nice seeing that so many had survived. Damn near everyone seemed to gawk at Ruby, specifically at her right eye, as was becoming normal these days. It was times like these when she wanted to have longer hair. Keeping it in the kind of style that covered one eye would be rather nice compared to suspiciously putting her hood up. The girls continued on through the busy academy. There was however one large room they found to be nearly empty. Through the window outside they could see a few people in radiation suits. Ruby could hear the crackling sound that radiation made inside. Also staring into the room was professor Peter Port.

"Umm, professor Port? What are they doing in there?" Ruby asked.

"Hmm?" Port turned his head to look at the girls, or at least they assumed he did with how his eyes always seemed like they were closed. "It's nothing to be concerned about, ladies." he said in his usual booming voice, "We were studying this strange dagger Dr. Oobleck brought back with him but someone accidentally cut himself with it. He… well…" He paused to search for the right words. "He blew up in a fiery explosion. It seemed to have been a small nuclear one too. Most of that room is radioactive now." Ruby made a puzzled look at him. She, along with Miriam, had been stabbed by that same dagger without anything happening.

"So it kills grass and blows people up." Blake said bitterly, "Where does something like that come from?"

"Not from around here." Ruby said.

"Can we just get to our dorm already?" Yang groaned with a hand over her forehead, "We just fought Grimm and mutant cultists for eighteen hours straight without rest! I'm bloody tired here!"

Ruby grinned. "Yeah, that would be for the best." she muttered.

XXX

As soon as the door was open, Blake and Yang headed straight for their beds and lied down without putting on pajamas, brushing their teeth, or even saying a word. The day they explored R'lyeh had been the most tiring day of their lives, but today had shown it up, and then some. Ruby leaned against the door frame and dropped her emotionless face for a sad one. Not that she was the type to bottle up her emotions, she just didn't want anyone to catch on. Once she was sure that her friends were asleep, she would sneak out on them. This might be the last time she would ever see them.

"Hey Ruby." Jaune said. He had his back against the door to his room that faced Ruby's. "Not tired either?"

Ruby gave a squeaky "Nope."

Jaune chuckled. "I never said 'thank you', and I'm not thanking Torchwick, so thank you. Me and Pyrrha owe you big time." he said.

Ruby managed a sincere smile. "Yep." she squeaked.

"I would've thanked you earlier, but you were kind of acting strange." Jaune said, looking off to the side and scratching his head.

Ruby shrugged. "I got a demon in my eye. Yours is just in your stomach." she said.

"About that." Jaune said nervously, "Definitely-not-Weiss gave it to me a while ago. Will I start to-"

"I don't know what'll happen to you." Ruby interrupted, "I don't know if you'll end up like me or if it's something a little different. Only time will tell." She lowered her head in despair. "Once you find out, make the right choice for yourself and your team." she said solemnly. She turned and went into her room. "Goodbye." she said before closing the door.

XXX

Roman Torchwick and his people were given a decent-sized room all to themselves, obviously so that they would be easier to keep track of. They all had to make due with sleeping bags for now, which irritated Torchwick.

"You disappoint me, Roman." said a woman in the doorway.

"Whoa!" Torchwick gave a startled jump. He turned to see one of his old accomplices, Cinder Fall, approaching him. "Hehe… I wasn't expecting to see you here." Torchwick said to her.

"I'm surprised as well, not by the fact you were allowed in here, but that you got away from the Ascended unscathed. If I had to guess, you didn't encounter very many." Cinder said in her usual relaxed demeanor.

"Well what can I say? I always have a plan." Torchwick said boastfully, "It'll take more than that pack of freaky horror-show animals to bring me down."

"Since you fail to realize, the things you saw out there, they're not beasts," Cinder said, pausing to make an amused smile, "they're people."

Torchwick cocked an eyebrow as he put a cigar in his mouth and lit it. "So you know about these creatures too, eh?" he said.

"Secret cults that worship The Great Old Ones and Outer Gods have existed for centuries. I take it you've spoken with one of their members?" Cinder asked.

"Not sure. She didn't strike me as the type to associate with that kind of crowd." Torchwick said.

XXX

Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck zoomed around the lecture hall, his theater-like classroom, as he spoke to military personal seated throughout the room about the creatures laying siege to the city. "The reason why these creatures, which we will refer to as Creatures of Glumm for now, have eased up on their attacks is that they've chosen to prioritize containment of the Grimm for whatever reason. They've clearly been at it since the major breach along the south-eastern side of the city. Most interestingly, they seem to be coordinating over long distances to keep the Grimm away from us. Multiple eye-witness accounts have reported seeing them dropping what they were doing and moving to deal with the Grimm within the exact same minute from opposite sides of the city." Oobleck explained quickly.

"Are you saying that these creatures function under a hive mind?" someone asked.

"The scientific term is 'swarm intelligence', but yes. It is typically where a large group of individuals receive information from a centralized source that drives their decision making. It's meant to provide answers that make mathematical sense to benefit the most members of the group. For the moment we can only guess if the swarm intelligence is a collective conscious or if there is a 'queen bee' among them."

"So what does that mean for us, doctor? Are these creatures mindless as individuals?" another guy asked.

"Far from it." Oobleck paused to take a sip of coffee from his thermos. "I can tell you from first-hand experience that an individual Glumm is profoundly intelligent, at least equal to you and myself. Having a swarm intelligence only means that all the information from every individual is aggregated, distilled so that the group can make better decisions and make them together. Individual bees and ants for example have specific skills and perform different jobs for the colony. Whether the Creatures of Glumm coordinate through telepathy or pheromones also has yet to be explored."

Jaune watched the lecture from one of the doorways at the back of the room. He couldn't sleep even if he wanted to, so he may as well try to better understand what was happening to him. With how bad things were, letting scientists dissect him for the good of the kingdom actually didn't sound that bad. Ten minutes later after the lecture was over, Jaune stopped Oobleck on his way out of the room. "Wait! Mr. Oobleck!" Jaune said.

"That's _doctor_ Oobleck. I didn't earn a PhD for fun, thank you very much." Oobleck said with a finger raised.

"Yeah fine, doctor Oobleck." Jaune said dismissively, "Anyways, you were out on a mission with team RWBY, right? I wanted your opinion on Ruby's… erm… _condition_. I've learned about all I can from just talking to her."

"Ah yes, the reptilian-like eye." Oobleck said, nodding his head and adjusting his glasses, "It and possibly a portion of her brain have of course been altered by god-knows-what. This is obviously just speculation, but it could be a mutation brought on by exposure to a chemical deployed by one of the creatures or it could even be that a parasitic organism has taken up residence and is steadily increasing its influence."

Jaune cringed as his hand went to his stomach. "I don't think I like either theory." he muttered.

"Indeed. I doubt these creatures would be any less terrifying even if we knew all there was to know about them." Oobleck said with a bit of optimism, "With all that's still yet to be discovered, I'm not going to have any free time for a long time. On that note, I believe I should get going. Good day." He zipped away in a flash.

"Wait!" Jaune shouted, but Oobleck was already gone. Jaune shook his head. He knew that this would be a long shot, but still. He thought of Pyrrha. No, he would never let go of what he had. Suddenly he felt someone gently push him on the shoulder.

"Shove." Cardin said casually.

"Cardin?" Jaune said. Come to think of it, this was the exact spot where Cardin had once shoved him before Pyrrha mentioned that she really would break the bully's legs.

"It really sucks to be in your debt, you know." Cardin said with his arms crossed.

"Don't thank me. Thank Ruby and Coco." Jaune said.

Cardin shrugged. "Alright. At least those two aren't spineless like you or that animal Velvet." he said.

"What do you want, Cardin?!" Jaune said, now angry.

"The thing that killed Russel and Sky!" Cardin said then pointed a finger at Jaune, "You seem to be well-acquainted with it."

"What? You want to get back at it?" Jaune sneered, "Be my guest. Apparently you've forgotten how unkillable she is!"

"'She'?" Cardin quoted, looking amused, "Hah. There's more than one way to get back at someone, you know. Speaking of which, you know what it's after, don't you? I'm willing to guess that you were more than just prey to it."

"Mind your own business!" Jaune said bashfully.

"It was clearly after you and it killed _my_ teammates! _I am_ 'minding my own business'!" Cardin said harshly.

"Do you honestly think that I'm holding back something we could use against her?" Jaune asked with his arms spread out.

"I could tell by the way it moved that it didn't want you dead." Cardin said. He leaned closer, studying Jaune as if suspicious of him. "In fact, I get the feeling that it would be pretty upset if something…" His eyes darkened. "…happened to you."

A stroke of fear suddenly passed down Jaune's spine. "Cardin, you better not be thinking what I think you're… umm… thinking." he said cautiously.

Cardin stared for what felt like an eternity, and then, backed off with his arms crossed. "I just want to know what my friends died for!" he said.

Jaune relaxed, lowering his head in sorrow. "I'm sorry about Russel and Sky, I really am, but I don't know what motivates Miriam." he said. That name, since when did he know the creature's name? Cardin stared at him again. The only word Jaune could think of to describe him was 'unsatisfied'. Finally, Cardin blinked and turned away.

XXX

After Blake and Yang seemed as asleep as one could get, Ruby waited for an extra ten minutes just to be sure, then quietly got out of bed, put on her shoes, grabbed her equipment, and headed out the door. She strode down the hallway, paying no mind to anyone that cringed at her. There had to be someone or something that could help, anything with the knowledge to reverse whatever it was she had, but she knew since talking to Ozpin that it was far beyond anyone… anyone human or faunus anyways. There _were_ experts, or the closest thing there could be, on Cthulhu and his kin. This information had rode in with the changes she had been going through, and if it was anything to go by, these 'experts' had barrel-shaped bodies, starfish-like heads and feet, and each had five eyes, tentacles, wings, feeding tubes, and brain lobes. It was a bizarre image to be sure, though more weird than scary when compared to the sanity-blasting Cthulhu. Maybe she could seek them out? With all that being connected to the Ascended's hive mind allowed her to know, she might even know where to look. First things first though; she had to leave Beacon Academy.

Ruby roamed around the campus, keeping as low a profile as her demon-eye would allow. She considered taking a Bullhead, but quickly decided that she wasn't in a hurry and that the people here needed everything they had. Just walking sounded better. She needed time to think and let what was happening to her run its course while alone anyways. She came outside, walked through the campus, and left the academy grounds without incident. She came all the way to the cliffside overlooking the Emerald Forest, the very spot where she and other hunters-in-training had been launched from at the start of their very first mission, when a voice called out from behind her.

"Ruby!" Blake shouted.

"Blake?" Ruby turned around to see Blake there, panting in exhaustion and looking at her with anger.

"Ruby, don't do this! You can't face this alone!" Blake said shaking her head.

"I'm becoming one of _them_ , Blake! I'm dangerous! I'm a ticking time-bomb!" Ruby yelled, then gave a defeated sigh, "I didn't tell anyone because… because I was afraid."

"You didn't have to tell us. We knew." Blake said more calmly. She put her hands on her hips and started pacing. "We didn't see that it wasn't Weiss standing beside us because we wanted to pretend nothing was wrong. We couldn't make that mistake again."

"So you're just gonna make some other mistake? If you stay near me, I'll probably hurt you!" Ruby said.

"You haven't tried to yet, in fact you've been kind of helpful every time you've _changed_ on us. All three times, you didn't act like a completely different person, but more like a crazy version of yourself. It's like there's a part of you in there still aware enough to keep you from turning on us." Blake said as she walked up to Ruby. She put her hands onto Ruby's shoulders. "Besides, some things are more important than just surviving."

"Some things?"

Blake took a deep breath. "I've seen it many times in the White Fang. People just… fade away when they've got nothing to live for. They die or they lose who they are. I've already lost so much and I didn't have much to begin with. This team is the closest thing I've got left to a family." she said sorrowfully, "If you go, we both lose something important." She and Ruby hugged each other.

"Blake, you're as much as sister to me as Yang is." Ruby said, "That's why I have to…"

"You'll overcome this thing, Ruby. You won't have to face it alone." Blake said. It sure was a weird conversation. Ruby was supposed to be the optimist with Blake being the cynical one, not the other way around. Their embrace ended and they sat down on the grass, both resting against each other's backs.

"Blake, didn't you once read a book about a man with two souls or something?" Ruby asked.

"Yes. They fought for control over the same body? Why?"

"Well, how did it end?"

Blake shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We _earn_ our happy endings. You told me that a long time ago."

"The day we met, yeah." Ruby nodded. She tilted her head up and looked up at the stars. "I told you about how Yang used to read stories for me every night before bed."

"I remember. It was part of why you chose to become a huntress; hoping we all get a happily-ever-after." Blake said with a laugh.

"I always wanted to be just like the heroes in those books…" Ruby said, managing a smile. Her smile quickly faded however. "…not the monster. 'The real world isn't the same as a fairy tale', eh?"

"That's why we're here, to make it better." Blake quoted, "C'mon, let's get back to Beacon." Ruby reluctantly agreed and both girls headed back. The people around campus paid little attention to them, and upon returning to their dorm, they found Yang still lying in bed in a deep sleep. Ruby and Blake wished each other a 'good night' and went to sleep too.

XXX

Ruby blinked, realizing that she was sitting up straight in bed in her padded room. There was a man with a clipboard sitting in a char in front of her. He had been talking to her for a while without her noticing. "-that I understand your psychological need to pretend that you're still a huntress, but this needs to stop! We want to help you and we'd hate to keep you isolated, but you're violent, trained, dangerous. You're the most dangerous patient we have. You've injured doctors, guards, other patients. A week ago you tried to snap someone's arm off."

Ruby didn't say a word. She just drooled as she stared at nothing. Without moving her head, she looked down and saw that there were a few papers laid out on her bed. Slowly, she grabbed one of the papers and slipped it under her bed sheet without the doctor noticing. She didn't know what it could be, but it was better than nothing. Maybe the doctor would come back for it?

"Now lucky for you, the board has decided to allow your friends from Beacon to come and visit you again. Your sister seems to be the only person that you still respond to, we're expecting an improvement in your behavior, hopefully even a breakthrough." The doctor, therapist, or whatever he was explained to Ruby. He looked at her for a while, but she gave no reply. "Well it makes no difference to me whether you heard all that or not." he said. He took his clipboard and papers then left the room. The door audibly locked behind him. Ruby blinked then slowly brought out the paper she had taken from him.

 _Patient is highly intelligent and highly delusional. Well-trained protege of her uncle and revered huntsmen Qrow. Known proclivity for violence, screaming, pulling on scalp, and mood swings. Shows no remorse for her actions because she denies that they ever took place. Highly developed and fantastical narratives, which preclude facing the-_

Ruby stopped reading after that. Dropping the paper onto the floor, her hands trembled as she stared at the padded door. Suddenly she sprang out of bed and began pounding her fists against the door. "I have to get back! I have to get back to Beacon! Let me out!" she screamed.

XXX

To be continued…


	11. Chapter 11: Through Shadows

"Tell me more about this demon-eye that follows you around. Is it what tells you to do bad things?" an old man in a doctor's coat asked.

"It doesn't follow me. It-" Ruby looked away and crossed her arms. Why would she even bother to explain if none of this was real?

"Ruby, we appreciate that you're finally talking to us, but-"

"But you can't help me unless I let you, blah, blah, blah!" Ruby rudely interrupted the doctor. Her outburst seemed to put guard behind her on alert, but he stayed put. He wasn't armed, just standing in the doorway of the doctor's office with his hands on his hips.

"Now now Ruby, there's no need for that kind of attitude." the doctor said in a friendly tone, "I would like to know more about this demon-eye you keep talking about, but you refuse to elaborate whenever I ask. Is there anything, anything at all you would like to say about it?"

Ruby huffed. She had to get out of this, whatever 'this' was, or else the thing in her eye might kill her friends using her hands, her worst fear realized. "It scares me…" she whispered without thinking.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "Ah, I see." he said, jotting down some notes onto a paper on his desk, "Well then, I think that's enough for now." He gestured toward the man at the doorway. "This gentleman will escort you back to y-"

"Doctor, please!" Ruby stood up an beckoned, "Can I spent the day out of my room? Maybe visit the rec hall? I promise I'll be good!"

The doctor studied her for a moment, then nodded. "Alright Ms. Rose. Since you asked nicely, and cause you haven't caused trouble for a while, we'll make this one exception," he said, then raised a finger at her, "but don't make us regret it."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" the guard interjected, "There's no telling what she thinks she sees this very moment."

"Don't worry. I can tell by her eyes that she can see the world for what it is right now." the doctor said.

"What about my right eye?!" Ruby blurted out in panic.

"Not your right eye, Ms. Rose." the doctor said with a friendly laugh, "Your facial expression, the way you're looking around."

"Oh, umm… yeah." Ruby squeezed her hands together bashfully.

"Well, have a nice day. Be good." the doctor said then went back to his papers.

Ruby got off her chair and was allowed out of the room. She headed to the recreation room, which she somehow knew the location of, and was met by a very lively room. The sun shined brightly in the cloudless sky through the windows overlooking the garden outside. Two guys were playing ping pong near the windows and about a dozen other patients were watching the last Spruce Willis movie on the television across the room. Ruby brushed her hair out of her eye… then realized what she just did. Apparently her extremely messy hair had grown much longer, dropping down a little past her shoulders. She shrugged then took a seat at one of the tables. This place's staff members were kind enough to give her lunch where she sat, serving her a tray of ham and eggs. They handed her a fork, plastic of course, so that she couldn't hurt herself or others with it. The meal was absolutely delicious, nothing like in the other world where any food she tried tasted like nothing. Another patient, a boy her age, sat down across from her. He stared into her eyes and smiled at her.

"Hey there. I don't think I've seen you around here before." the boy said.

"They don't let me out of my room much." Ruby said in a raspy whisper.

"Why not? You seem a lot more normal than the other folks here. You're like me, and I'm allowed anywhere I like," he shrugged, "I mean, as long as it's not in someone's office or outside the building."

"Outside…" Ruby muttered, "could you help me get out of here?"

"Huh?" The boy's smile faded, taken aback by her question. "Umm, how did you get committed to this place anyways?" he asked.

"I don't know."

The boy made a curious look at her. "You don't know?" he asked, "Or you wont tell me?"

A staff member put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Hey, you know the rules. Hands off the female patients." he said in as pleasant a tone he could make.

"I didn't touch her." the boy said with a guiltless shrug. He winked at Ruby as he stood up and was escorted away.

Ruby stared back with a baffled expression. Was that boy just flirting with her of all people? He must indeed be crazy. "The food is great and all, but god do I hope none of this is real." Ruby looked at her index finger, then bit it really hard. It certainly felt real, and everything here made sense. The other world did not. She finished her meal and pondered on what she should do next. Would it even matter if she physically left the building? She really hated flying blind, having to learn through trial and error, all while being in a hurry.

A while later, Ruby wandered around hoping that something would just come to her. It felt weird exploring a place for the first time while somehow feeling familiar with every room and hallway. It was no good though, as every window was barred and every door was locked or blocked by a guard. She couldn't just force her way past or they would lock her up and she'd lose her only chance. Any patient she tried to talk to gave her an unintelligible response, usually relating to whatever condition or obsession put them here. The staff members were nice but it wasn't like they were going to help her escape.

A nurse sniffed in Ruby's direction. "Ugh… I can tell you missed bath time again this week, Ruby." she said.

"It's nice to see her out and about though." a doctor said, "She's not screaming or pulling on her hair anymore."

"I've always preferred short hair. It doesn't get in the way." Ruby hissed her words more than said them.

"It's all about preference-" The doctor was cut off when a patient suddenly grabbed onto him from behind.

"It's _evil_! Stop it! Make it go away!" the crazed patient screamed.

"Easy! Cut it out!" the doctor yelled as he tried to shake the patient off. Two guards grabbed the crazed man by the arms and restrained him as the nurse handed the doctor a syringe. "Hold him down." the doctor said as he took the syringe, flicked the side of it twice, then used it on the screaming man.

"Evil…" the maniac breathed before falling asleep.

"Poor fella." the doctor said.

Ruby watched the staff members gently carry the psycho away, completely unfazed by what she saw. "Hmph… evil?" she said sarcastically, "What horrible thing could he have seen to make him lose his mind like that?"

"Ah, don't worry about him. 'Evil' is just a word people use when they've given up trying to understand someone." the doctor said to her.

"And what about what _can't_ be understood?" Ruby asked.

"Pardon me?"

"What of the thing that gave me the eye." Ruby said, thinking about the dark lord Cthulhu, "Unknowable, mysterious, and probably evil… that is, if his motivations can even be compared to human motives at all."

"That's enough, Ruby." the doctor said with a hand raised, "I've heard this fantasy before, and I can assure you, there are no sea gods out to get you."

"Yeah, okay _dok_." Ruby ended with a sneer. It was rather annoying not knowing anyone's name while almost everyone seemed to know her's.

XXX

Ruby returned to the recreation room and sat down, not knowing what to do with herself. She didn't have the faintest idea on how to escape this hallucination… assuming this was even a hallucination at all. Would returning to her room and going to sleep make her wake up in the other world? She closed her eyes for only a moment and saw him… Cthulhu. Standing up like a man with wings like a dragon and a head like a squid, he stood over her, more tremendous than anything she could describe. She gasped and opened her eyes quickly, panting and dripping with sweat. Some staff members and other patients were staring at her. She looked at the clock on the wall and saw that it had jumped ahead by ten minutes. "What the…" Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey there, sis."

"Don't lock me up! No psychotic episodes here!" Ruby said with an awkward grin. She cringed when she saw that it was Yang standing there frowning at her.

"Umm, yeah…" Yang said, "Anyways, how are you doing? It's been a while."

Ruby blinked. "It has?"

"We're really sorry for not coming by more. We've been awfully busy." Blake said with a shrug.

Ruby relaxed, reminding herself that these weren't actually her friends. It was just a delusion. "Let me guess. The Grimm have been getting bolder and Vale needs all its huntsmen on the job?" she said.

"Hmm, you seem a lot better now." Weiss said as she sat beside Ruby with her back to the table, throwing one leg over the other, "Wow, and your hair has really grown out."

"And you're not missing an arm." Ruby said like she was pointing out painted nails.

Weiss made a baffled look. "Wha… what?"

Yang chuckled. "I'm not sure if I should be glad that she's telling jokes now, or worried that she thought your arm was gone." she said. Ruby turned and made a piercing stare into Yang's eyes. "Umm, sis? Are you trying to stare into my soul or something?" Yang asked uncomfortably.

"Kind of." Ruby said with a curious expression. She searched hard and… she could feel her sister's good heart and wild soul there. Siblings that grew up together knew each other, and this was indeed the real Yang, somehow. Ruby stopped staring and smiled to herself.

"Umm, okay…" Yang said with a slow nod, "At least it's still an improvement over last time."

"My condition hasn't gotten better. I'm just starting to figure out how to live with it." Ruby growled.

"Your voice sounds awfully hoarse, Ruby." Weiss said, "You want me to get some water?"

"It wouldn't help. No human or faunus can help." Ruby rasped.

"That's enough of that." Yang said, pulling Ruby up on her feet, "Regardless of what's really happening to you, forget about it and focus on just us for today." Ruby just grumbled. "C'mon sis. Get rid of that scowl before your face gets stuck that way."

XXX

Ruby and Yang stood at opposite sides of the ping pong table, each holding a paddle in both hands. Over a dozen ping pong balls bounced back and forth between them, though the speed in which they flew around made it look like there were thousands. Patients and doctors gathered around to watch the spectacle.

"Alright, you still got it!" Yang shouted over all the racket. It sounded like someone was firing a chain gun that shot BB pellets.

"Add two more, Blake!" Ruby said with excitement, standing still as her arms flew around in a blur.

"You got it!" Blake said. She threw in a ping pong ball, then another, that bounced off the table and seamlessly joined the storm.

"I'm all for practicing hand-eye coordination, but could you try something a little quieter?!" Weiss yelled with her hands covering her ears.

"The only other game they let us play here is Checkers!" Ruby shouted. Suddenly, images of her, Blake, and Yang fighting back waves of the Ascended outside Beacon flashed before her eyes. The brief shock of it caused her to hit one of the balls too hard. Ping pong balls showered off the table onto the floor while one bounced all over the room like a rubber bullet before landing straight into someone's coffee cup with a splash. Ruby and Yang looked at the doctor with coffee all over his face, then at each other, then burst out laughing.

"Hah! I knew the old you was in there somewhere!" Yang said.

Ruby chuckled at the mess they had made on the floor… but now the floor was grass, the ping pong balls were chucks of the Ascended, her patient gown was her hoodie, and she was outside Beacon near the circular docking platforms. It was early in the morning and the sun had just risen. She looked around and found Blake, Yang, Neopolitan, and others she couldn't put names to working together to hold back the attackers. Behind them nearer to the school was Torchwick firing off shots with his cane, Coco blasting away with her Gatling gun, and many others with ranged weapons. Ruby looked over at the cliffside and saw more Ascended climbing up. One was coming straight at her and she ran to meet it, laughing like a maniac. She chopped into the Ascended… she hit a ping pong ball with a paddle and it flew like a bullet. Yang dropped one of her paddles and caught the ball instead. She looked from it to Ruby, and frowned.

"You okay, sis? You look kind of shaken." Yang asked.

Ruby looked around from the doctors, to the patients, to Weiss. She was still _here_ in this place. "I just… I don't…" she mumbled with her hands over her face.

"Maybe you two should have played Checkers after all. It wouldn't have gotten her this worked up." Weiss said.

Ruby slid her hands down and looked around at the massive battle being fought between huntsmen and monsters. Beacon's defenses were standing firm and any civilians remained safely in the school behind them. Ruby's eyes fell onto Blake, whom was standing a few feet away staring back at her.

"So, any changes to the plan?" Blake asked.

"Huh? Plan?" Ruby said, not having any idea what her friend was talking about. She looked left and right to see if she was addressing somebody else.

"I assume it's why you were looking at me that way." Blake added.

"Alright red, it's all set up!" Torchwick yelled to her from a distance, "What next?"

Ruby scanned the academy grounds again, then suddenly it all made sense to her. With her being so knowledgeable about the enemy, her friends and allies had apparently decided to follower her lead for this battle. Beacon's defense, if not just a portion of it, was given to her, or rather, to whatever was in her body's driver's seat whenever she was stuck in that mental hospital.

"Step aside! Hold her still!" a doctor said as he knelt down.

Ruby was lying on her back on the recreation room's floor, looking up at a dozen concerned faces as she shook uncontrollably in an apparent seizure. She gasped and settled down when given an injection of something then slowly started to fade away.

"Oh…" Yang groaned, "and you were doing so well too."

XXX

Ruby woke up alone in her familiar padded room. She had to get out of here. Not only was Beacon under attack, but the thing calling the shots for its defense was the demon in her eye. An extremely important event, and it most certainly knew it if it was keeping her here like this. A while passed before the door opened. A doctor and two guards came into the room.

"Are you feeling alright, Ms. Rose?" the doctor asked, "You gave us quite a scare earlier. We're still guessing as to what happened to you."

Ruby didn't hear him. She grabbed onto her hair and pulled on it. "There's something wrong with this place!" she cried, then pointed a finger at the doctor, "You're not keeping me here!" She looked around at the walls and ceiling. "Do you hear me?! Whatever you are, you are not keeping me here!"

One of the guards stepped forward. "Ruby, let's just stay calm." he said patiently, "Doctor Hill is trying to help you."

"Stop it! Leave me alone! None of you are even real!" Ruby cried.

"Ruby, I can see you're upset, but I would like you to use your quiet voice now." the doctor said, now more strictly, "I do not wish to speak to your 'monster personality'."

Ruby got out of bed, put her slippers on, and glared at the doctor. "I don't want to deal with it either." she said. Still in touch with her inner-huntress, she bolted past the guards, grabbed the doctor's keyring like a classic pickpocket, and slipped through the open door before they could grab her. People jumped out of her way as she sprinted through the hallways. A bit of an uproar was started as some of the staff tried to chase her.

"Ruby, get back here!"

Ruby tried to pick up the pace, but couldn't use her semblance of speed for some reason. Maybe she just couldn't concentrate, maybe they drugged her with something, but whatever the case she had to lose them the old fashioned way. She looked over her shoulder and noticed Weiss, Blake, and Yang.

"What's going on? What happened?" Yang asked the doctor.

Ruby jumped off the wall and flew right over a security guard that had his arms spread out. She went around a corner, kept on running, then headed up a stairwell. The door at the top of it was lock as expected, but she had the key now. "Ruby stop! There's nothing out there for you!" the hospital's staff shouted behind her. She got the door open and ran out onto the rooftop, but only seconds later she felt someone grab her by the wrist. She turned her head to find that it was Blake.

"Get a hold of yourself!" Blake shouted, "If you keep this up, they'll never let you out!"

Ruby just tuned out what she heard. "She's not real." she told herself, "It's just a phantom." She threw her fist at 'Blake' with the tips of keys between her fingers. Blake's look of frustration turned to that of surprise at the sight of her own friend turning her. The punch landed, but it seemed to… tear straight through her chest. Ruby blinked and slowly started to realize that her surroundings had changed again. Blake slowly brought a shaking hand onto Ruby's arm and stared into her eyes with confusion. She was crying without making a sound. Then just like that… Ruby's hand just seemed to… drink her.

For a moment there was only silence. Ruby fell to her knees, shivering as she stared down at all that was left of her friend, the Gambol Shroud and a little black bow. She suddenly screamed in horror as loud as she could, but what actually came out was the unearthly screech of an angry, extraterrestrial beast. Yang, Torchwick, Neopolitan, and many others around her covered their ears. Some fell over in agony. Ruby didn't pull on her hair, she ripped it out, but it grew back the way it was in an instant. The wads of hair in her hands seemed to squirm around like frenzied earthworms before recombining into her palms.

Yang watched with a look of disbelief. "R… Ruby-"

" _Don't call me that_!" Ruby cried in a voice that was not her own, " _I'm not your sister anymore_! _I'm not even human_!" With her heightened senses, she could tell without even looking that Yang was approaching her for one reason or another. " _No_! _Stay back_!" Ruby leapt back and raised her scythe at her sister.

Yang froze, looking… scared. "Sis…"

Ruby felt the stab of a hundred eyes watching her and began hyperventilating. She was breathing so fast and hard, but she didn't feel the least bit winded. She suddenly took off with blinding speed as Yang called after her. Ruby wiped away tears of blood that had come from both eyes as she ran. She didn't care where she went now. She just had to get out of here. The idea that Blake was just… gone now… it didn't seem _real_ to her.

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **Diabolus ex Machina.**


	12. Chapter 12: Wash Away The Anger

**I had to rush this chapter, as I'll be busy over the next few weeks.**

* * *

Jaune speed-walked through Beacon's hallways with a tense look on his face. That unearthly shriek caused the whole school to freeze and listen for whatever might come next. "I don't like this…" Jaune whispered to himself. He came to the ballroom where the school dance had been a while back, headed to the second floor, and looked out the window, but all he saw was that it had started raining. The last time he'd heard a screech like that, it was Miriam inviting all her friends over. It had been almost an hour since the Ascended's massive attack on the school. Were they sounding off for the start of another? The lack of gunshots said otherwise. Nervous chatter slowly started to pick up between the refugees in the room. "I wonder what that was about." Jaune said on his way back down the stairs. He noticed Coco Adel sitting at a piano at the corner of the dance floor. To calm everyone down, she started to play a well-practiced, soothing and relaxing tune for all to hear. Jaune looked around and noticed that he wasn't the only one that seemed to appreciate it. When the song ended, he and a few others gave a soft but wholehearted applaud. Coco gave a subtle nod in return, her expression hard to read due to those sunglasses.

"That was quite lovely." said a motherly looking citizen.

"Well, I never took you for the piano-playing type." Jaune said to Coco.

"We all have our hobbies." Coco said.

Jaune took notice that Coco didn't have her Gatling gun with her. "No offense Coco, but you should probably go grab your transforming hand-bag instead of wasting your time playing music." Jaune said, "I know you heard that shriek too."

"It's not a waste." Coco said. She looked toward all the civilians sitting and standing throughout the room. "Look at them. Some are barely keeping it together, but knowing you and I are here for them…" Coco shrugged, "they can have a bit more peace of mind," she shook her head, "and not just because we're armed and know how to fight."

Jaune nodded. "Right. A guardian brings comfort. An army is a sign of conflict." he said, remembering that someone had told him this once.

Pyrrha suddenly came storming into the room. "Jaune! Did Ruby come by here?!" she said, sounding tense.

"Umm, no. I haven't seen her." Jaune said with a puzzled look, "What's going on?"

"Everyone's searching for her. She's become a threat!" Pyrrha said with her voice low.

"What are you talking about?" Jaune said skeptically, "It was Ruby's understanding of those creatures that kept them from overrunning this place in their last attack."

Pyrrha frowned. "Jaune, she killed Blake." she said gloomily.

Jaune's eyes went wide. "What?" he recoiled, "But she would never…"

"I saw it. I was th-" Pyrrha froze when her eyes fell upon Coco, whom was still sitting at the piano watching them. "Uh, Jaune?" she said with a cautious tone.

Jaune was still shaking his head, looking grim and not knowing what to think. Being told out of the blue that Blake was dead was just ridiculous. "What?" he sighed.

"Wasn't Coco missing a foot?" Pyrrha asked.

"Huh?" Jaune looked over at Coco and noticed that she was wearing both her heeled boots. Jaune then turned to see that Velvet, Fox, Yatsuhashi, and another Coco had walked in through the doorway. This second Coco had an arm around Fox and a stump leg covered in bandages. The piano suddenly started to play again, this time with a slow, ominous tune. With a look as if someone had put ice in his pants, Jaune slowly turned his head back at the creepy piano-player.

( _Try Youtubing "Silent Hill 2 Where the demon sleeps OC Remix". It fits pretty well_.)

"La la la la… la la lalalalala…" 'Coco' sang as she played.

"What in the…" Coco stammered. With her free hand, she tilted her glasses down and made an amazed glance at her doppelganger. The piano song ended and the room feel eerily silent. A moment passed, then the two-legged Coco stood up and looked at her twin. She took her glasses off and pocketed them. She blinked, and her eyes changed from dark brown to red snake-like ones, exactly like Ruby's right eye. No one in the room moved a muscle.

"Oh sh-" Jaune was cut off when the real Coco pulled out her Gatling gun and immediately blasted away at the imposter. The piano blew apart and Miriam flew backwards as holes were torn through her. Civilians screamed and fled in a mad panic. Out of a small dust cloud that formed where Miriam had landed, the monster stood back up, now in her misshapen-abomination form, and performed that earsplitting roar Jaune had become so sick of. Windows shattered from Miriam's side of the ballroom, working their way down until all of them were broken.

"Run!" Pyrrha cried as she and Jaune made for the door. Miriam pursued them on all fours like a beast.

XXX

It was the middle of the day, but the sky was dark and the rain was pouring. Ruby stopped just outside the Emerald Forest when she heard a calling-howl from one of her own kind. She could feel its presence… she knew it was Miriam. A surge of rage eclipsed her sorrow in an instant. To the fiery pits with leaving this place. If there was a way to kill that stupid thing, she was going to find it! She turned around and immediately headed back to Beacon.

"There she is! I found her!" a huntsmen yelled. Ruby shoved him aside as she ran by him. Others opened fire, but Ruby barely even noticed the short-lived bullet holes they made through her. She was blinded by an inhuman bloodlust, hardly aware of the trees she was smashing through instead of moving around. She stormed onto the academy grounds, at one point plunging her hand into the concrete ground to make a sharp turn without slowing down. Anyone that saw her was too startled and confused to react. The fact that she still looked human and wasn't attacking anyone helped. They probably weren't sure who she was.

" _I'll kill you! I'll rip you apart_!" Ruby screamed uncontrollably. That however got a reaction. A nearby huntsman transformed his weapon into a hand-held cannon and fired, nearly blowing off everything below her left knee and leaving it hanging by a thread. She tumbled and slid forward but quickly stood up with her knee already as good as new.

"Die monster!" another huntsman yelled as he charged Ruby with a sword, but she caught the blade between her left middle and index fingers. The young man recoiled in fear when he got a better look at her blood-covered face… blood that she had cried out from her own eyes.

"Stay away from me." Ruby said in a calm, normal voice. Her tone made it sound more like a warning than a threat. "No huntsman can help me. No huntsman can cure me. No huntsman can even kill me."

XXX

Jaune and the others didn't run. They had nowhere to go this time. Miriam nearly pounced onto Coco, but Yatsuhashi shoved his team's leader out of the way at the last moment and stopped the attack with his greatsword. "Velvet! Get Coco out of here! She's in no condition to fight!" Yatsuhashi said as he traded blows with the creature. Just when it seemed like he was holding his own, one of Miriam's claws morphed into a blade and cut through his sword like butter. He was then impaled upward and thrown aside.

"Nooooooo!" Velvet cried. Jaune and Fox tried to intervene but they were slapped away like they weren't important. Next it was Pyrrha that tried to step in with a thrust of her spear, but Miriam didn't even try to avoid the attack. She just laughed as she was stabbed and grabbed Pyrrha by the arm to rip it off.

"Aaaaahhh!" Pyrrha screamed in agony as blood sprayed out. Miriam partially absorb her arm before suddenly chucking the whole thing back out and onto the ground.

" _Ugh_! _You taste funny_!" Miriam remarked. One of her tentacles extended toward Velvet and pulled her closer by the ankle. " _But you, you're perfect_!" Miriam said, inspecting the frightened faunus she was holding upside down.

Jaune looked from Pyrrha, whom was shivering there on the bloodstained grass, to Velvet, whom was about to end up even worse, and gritted his teeth. Huntsmen that could casually take on hordes of Grimm were about as helpless as the people they swore to protect. "I've had enough!" Jaune shouted as he reached for his sword, but Cardin Winchester picked it up first. Cardin pulled Jaune onto his knees, knelt behind him, and put the sword to its owner's throat.

"Let her go, you freak!" Cardin yelled fiercely.

Miriam turned her attention toward Cardin and actually looked somewhat startled. She harmlessly dropped Velvet and studied Cardin and Jaune for a moment. " _Hmm_ …" She relaxed. " _Oh, he's almost fully turned now_." she said, " _You won't kill him_."

"You think I won't do it?!" Cardin yelled, "I don't even like this guy!"

" _I think you're incapable of it_." Miriam rasped. The fire in Cardin's eyes died. If the threat of killing Jaune didn't make Miriam back off, this was pointless. Still, the fact that she was visibly alarmed at first was rather curious. " _Here, I'll demonstrate_." Miriam added. A tentacle snatched up Jaune's sword from Cardin's grip like a lightning-fast snake. The sword was then run through Jaune's chest, shallowly penetrating into Cardin's chest as well. Cardin yelped in pain, but Jaune was only startled at worst. The tentacle pulled the sword back out and respectfully laid it onto Jaune's lap.

"Wh…what?" Jaune said, inspecting the not-so-fatal stab wound in his chest. Blood leaked out but there was so little of it. His aura had kicked to save him in the past, but this was completely different. He wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or frightened by it. Probably the latter with how Coco, Velvet, and Fox were staring at him.

Miriam looked from Jaune to the other huntsmen. " _I think I like this better_." she rasped, " _You can take some time to let go of your old world before accepting a new one. It'll make things easier_." Fleshy wings quickly sprouted out from her back. " _I came here for something else anyways_. _I'll leave you to your goodbyes_." She turned and launched herself into the sky. Coco, Velvet, and Fox looked on until she faded out of view, then directed their uneasy gazes at Jaune.

"Uhh…" Jaune looked around awkwardly and knew what they were thinking: that he was like Ruby, and that he would turn on them as she had.

XXX

Ozpin rode the elevator up to his office. Since the second howl, he'd had a gut feeling of what it was and what it might do. When the doors slid open and he stepped into his office, he found that his instincts had been correct. A misshapen abomination was sitting at his desk, actually using the chair as it lifted the Necronomicon off the desk and began flipping through the pages with its tentacles. The smashed window to the right that let in the roaring rainstorm outside made it obvious how it had gotten in here.

"Your office is quite lovely. Grandiose, yet simple." Miriam said, using Coco's voice to speak more clearly.

"I'm glad you like it, but this isn't the first time you've seen it." Ozpin said sternly, "Last time you were here, you wore a different face."

Miriam recoiled. It was hard to tell with her being just a blob of decaying flesh, but she almost seemed guarded. "You catch on faster than the others," she said, "even if you didn't at first."

"Well, as I'm sure you'd agree, it's become rather obvious by now." Ozpin remarked, gesturing toward the window at the view of the destroyed city, "Though you didn't go very far to hide it. You may have taken Weiss Schnee's face, but you never even tried to act like her."

"I never intended to." Miriam said with a friendly laugh, "The girl is different from me, yes, but young, pretty, born into a life of luxury… being so reminded of my old life made me want to relive it for a day or two. I liked to think that such a form suited me, as it once did a _long_ time ago."

"I think that the form you have _now_ suits you best. It is yours and yours alone." Ozpin said without expression.

"A body is only clothes for the mind inside." Miriam said more harshly, "I didn't always look like this, you know. Once upon a time, I was human like you are."

"Your appearance has become a reflection of more than just what you are now, but _who_." Ozpin said as he casually walked closer to his desk, "Every last thing about you tells the tale. They all scream of agony and longing…" He paused with a thoughtful look at Miriam. "But also… hope. How very human of you."

"Hehehe…" Miriam chuckled in Coco's voice, " _Hahahahaha_!" she broke out in laughter in monstrous, horrible voice, "Hmm." she groaned in her own, original voice as she transformed into a young, long-straight-haired young girl. She had amethyst purple eyes and her hair was linen-white as opposed to Weiss's brighter snow-white hair. The Necronomicon lied on her lap. "I wish I'd met you millions of years sooner." she said.

"So this is who you were." Ozpin said with pity, "This is whom you ceased to be."

"I think so. Maybe." Miriam said dolefully, "I have lived for a very long time, and each year it gets more and more difficult to remember who I used to be. It takes so much effort to just wear my own face now." She made a long exhale. "But soon…" she smiled, "I won't have to worry about that _anymore_!" In an instant she transformed back into that misshapen abomination, shoving aside the desk like a toy as she slowly closed in toward Ozpin.

The elevator doors slid open and Ruby charged out to tackle Miriam. The two smashed another hole through the windows and began falling together through the heavy rain. Thunder and lightning shattered the sky as Ruby brought out her scythe in one hand, holding onto Miriam with the other, and slashed away, but Miriam managed to push her off, grow wings, and fly off as Ruby landed straight into the concrete ground below with a loud crash. The impact had made a small crater, but Ruby got right back up without any sign of injury. Miriam flew off and seemed to land somewhere in the Emerald Forest, so Ruby headed straight for it.

XXX

Ruby landed in the middle of the Emerald Forest and looked around. "You're not getting away… _You're not getting away_!" she cried maniacally, then… for the first time since Blake had gone, she took a deep breath and tried to relax. She closed her eyes to concentrate, trying to feel out Miriam's presence and… she couldn't find her.

" _You haven't discovered how to hide your presence yet_." Miriam called out. Her speech echoed around the trees with no clear point of origin. " _You don't know where I am, but I know where you are_."

"Is that supposed to scare me, Miri?" Ruby shouted into the forest, "If you're as old as you say you are, you should know how far a person will go when they have nothing left to lose!"

" _Oh, but you still have so much more to lose, more than you can imagine_." Miriam rasped.

"I'll drive off that bridge when I come to it." Ruby said dismissively. She slowly walked forward and continued to look around to no avail. Even with her enhanced hearing, she still couldn't pinpoint Miriam's location. Suddenly she heard the crunch of a leaf getting stepped on and fired a round from her scythe's gun at whatever made it. A Beowolf with a hole through its chest fell over.

" _Get a hold of your emotions_! _Every Grimm in the forest is coming for you_!" Miriam said to her from afar.

Beowolves, Ursai, and Death Stalkers came out from between the trees, and Ruby cut them down. Slash, slash, _slash_! With so much strength behind her swings, she even cut through a Boarbatusk's front armor, disregarding its unarmored belly. A huge Nevermore flew down from the sky and struck her right on the head with its enormous beak as it passed. As the Nevermore came back for another pass, Ruby cracked her neck and leapt high into the air. She vertically chopped straight through the center of the Nevermore's head and sliced all the way through it, slicing the whole airplane-sized bird in half with one swing in mid-air. Both halves continued to fly a little further before crashing into different parts of the forest.

"You need to calm down. Focus on what's really important." a strange voice, not Miriam's, whispered in Ruby's mind. She had been hearing voices in her head for a while now but this one was new, yet it felt so familiar. As if at the flick of a switch, something seemed to just _make_ Ruby calm down and feel more focused than she'd ever been before. She cut down the last of the Grimm and none more came after that.

" _Splendid_. _Now there will be no more distractions_. _All we need are seconds it would be a proper duel._ " Miriam voice echoed around, " _Assuming you can find me first_."

Ruby calmly continued through the forest. Miriam wasn't running, she'd have flown away by now if she was, but she sure could hide. A moment ago, Ruby would have proceeded to just chop the whole forest down, but with a clearer head, she figured that she had to try something smarter. "Just so you know, Miri, my sister and I played hide and seek all the time when we were little." she said, "I got really good at the whole 'finding' par-" she cut off when a tentacle came at her from behind and wrapped around her waist. It yanked her off her feet and she soared through the forest until she was thrown into a tree.

" _This is not a game._ " Miriam said.

"Yeah, it's just a test." Ruby said as she grabbed her shoulder and shoved it back into position. "Youch!" she cried and began breathing hard. Suddenly another tentacle came out of nowhere and impaled her through the head. It flung her aside and sent her tumbling over the grass. She lied there tossing and turning in agony from how much it hurt.

" _You can still feel pain like any normal human_." Miriam told her, " _You can feel it to the point where it would break your mind and destroy your consciousness_."

Ruby got up, feeling better but with the memory of that pain still fresh in her mind. At least it didn't last too long. "So the Ascended aren't so perfect after all." she said. Suddenly another tentacle came out and blindsided her, the tip of it hardening like steel before she blocked it with her scythe. She saw another one coming at her from the corner of her eye and blocked it, then another, and another. She awaited the next attack, then realized that what she took for a tree behind her was Miriam standing there.

" _Perfect_?!" Miriam laughed. Ruby turned around and was tackled onto her back. " _We are the culmination of countless civilizations, empowered by boundless gods, given millions of years to ripen, and yet we still will never come close to Cthulhu's true immortality_!" Miriam said over Ruby as she tore at her with six claws. " _We humans like to believe that there is nothing we cannot eventually overcome, but there are forces out there so vast that we will never control or even understand them no matter how much time we're given_!" Ruby twitched and throbbed like a newly dead copse, but she was alive, feeling like she had just been killed a dozen times over. " _Merely trying to relate Cthulhu's unknowable vastness and illimitable power to our own mortal abilities is laughable_! _Your city was decimated by just his head lice_!" Miriam leapt off of Ruby and disappeared back into the forest. " _I hoped you would be the one_. _If you disappoint me again, I'll finish you off_!"

"Ugh…" Ruby squeaked as she slowly tried to get up. She had no doubts that Miriam could finish her off if she wanted to. She looked around and tried to think. She wouldn't get anywhere if Miriam always knew where she was. She closed her eyes to concentrate again, experimenting with her mind's connection to other minds. She had to learn the way she'd learn anything else, trying everything and seeing what did and did not work. She was vulnerable, but knew that Miriam wouldn't attack her if she was trying to figure this out. Suddenly, she felt someone grab her hand. She opened her eyes to see who.

"I'll worry about hiding you. Just get that old bag!" Blake said with a determined look, "We can beat her, as a team!" Lightning discharged in the sky and Blake vanished in the flash.

Miriam was hiding within the leafs of a tree and realized that she could no longer tell where Ruby was. " _Ah, she is a fast learner_." Miriam said. The lightning storm above was growing more and more furious.

"You know, I have to ask," Ruby said from an unclear location, "you've been trying to make me angry, so that you can teach me how to use the Ascended's tricks as I come after you. What on Earth for?"

" _It's because I like you, Ruby_." Miriam seemed to joke.

Ruby suddenly leapt from nowhere, cut through the leafs and branches to expose Miriam, grabbed hold of her, and threw her out into the open grass. Ruby landed in to the opening and walked toward her opponent. "She finally called me by my name…" she murmured.

Miriam slid on all fours before coming to a stop. " _Cthulhu has awoken, and he_ -" Miriam said before giving a heavy sigh, " _Forget it. We've both heard enough about inevitability and insignificance by now_. _You'll see it soon, as I have_."

Ruby and Miriam stared each other down in the forest's opening through the rain and strong winds, Ruby looked fierce while Miriam was unreadable due to not having a face.

 _Wash away the anger_ _…_

 _Here I stand beneath the warm and soothing rain!_

 _The droplets falling gently down on the terrain!_

 _Wash away the sorrow, all the stains of time!_

 _But there's no memory, it's only dry inside!_

Ruby made the first move and lunged forward. With how incredible her physical abilities had become, it was actually hard to keep up with her own movements when she pushed them to their limits. Miriam had no trouble at all though, clashing with Crescent Rose using the hardened tips of her combat tentacles. The both of them zoomed around high and low like bullets ricocheting all over the place as shock waves from their blows erupted everywhere in rapid fire. It was cut short when Ruby blocked a hit so strong that it launched her high into the air. She rotated mid-air to deflect a series of strikes from Miriam whom dashed by her as she fell.

" _Ascending changes the body so drastically_." Miriam said, " _Most have trouble relearning how to walk_ , _but you've grown into it so naturally_."

"Grown?" Ruby said after she landed, "Well, I do drink milk!" She swung her scythe but Miriam caught the blade and snapped it like a toothpick. Ruby stumbled backward and gawked at her broken blade incredulously. "Wha-" Miriam grabbed her and slammed her face-first into the ground.

" _Old habits die hard though_." Miriam said as she raised her leg to stomp on the little girl.

Ruby rolled aside to avoid getting crushed and flipped away. Upon landing on her feet, she glanced down at her bladeless scythe before reverting it to its compact form and putting it away. She reached to her belt and pulled out Weiss's rapier, Myrtenaster, and awkwardly held it forward. She had no idea how to fight with it, but a weapon was a weapon.

" _You still think you need to rely on weapons for instance_." Miriam continued, " _They're fun, I especially like rapiers, but you and I don't need them anymore_."

Ruby rushed forward and stabbed Miriam, but she may as well have stabbed a wad of jello. A tentacle slapped her, sending her tumbling over the grass before knocking over the tree she smashed into. She sat up and inspected the revolver-like chamber in Myrtenaster's hilt. It was supposed to channel different elements of dust through the blade, but she didn't have the faintest clue on how to work it. Instead she ripped the chamber out and threw it at Miriam like a grenade. "Eat this!" Ruby yelled. A massive explosion of fire, lightning, ice, and three other elements that she couldn't put a name to engulfed Miriam, ripping nearby trees out of the ground and forming a sizable crater, but when the smoke finally cleared, Miriam was still standing there unharmed.

" _Ugh_ … _you're starting to bore me again_." Miriam said with dissatisfaction.

Ruby frowned at Myrtenaster, then fastened it back onto her belt. When Cthulhu's twisted influence had a hand in something, human actions were inconsequential to it, but… she was _not_ human anymore. She removed the black leather glove she had on her right hand, pocketed it, and stared into her open palm. Between rips in her skin was the disgusting flesh that identified the Ascended. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." she said, making a fist. Her hand didn't change shape like she was expecting. Instead, the skin over it was completely torn to pieces when 'whatever her insides had changed to' sprang out in the form of a long tentacle. "Gah! Youch!" Ruby cried in pain. It hurt _a lot_ , but it was surprisingly easy to control. It was like a rusty limb that she had always been able to move, but never bothered to until now.

" _Don't worry_. _It stops hurting when you no longer have bones_." Miriam said.

Ruby grew a blade out the end of the tentacle, turning it to more of a scythe-whip, and went on the offensive again. Combing her skills with a scythe and Blake's skills with a Kusarigama, she seamlessly created an even deadlier new style. It still wasn't enough though, and so she made a second scythe-whip with her left hand. The forest rang with the music of blades hitting against blades.

" _Hahaha_! _Now we're having fun_!" Miriam cried with excitement.

Ruby held nothing back, using everything she and Blake knew, bringing her strength, speed, and reflexes to heights she never thought could be reached, but Miriam was clearly the more experienced fighter. "Well? What do you want me to figure out next?!" Ruby sneered when their blades locked together.

" _Pardon me_?" Miriam said.

"I can tell you're not fighting me with your full effort!" Ruby yelled.

" _Well neither are you_." Miriam laughed. If she had a face, she would be grinning right now. " _You still cling to your humanity_ ," she hissed, " _afraid of letting loose what's been growing inside you_!" She suddenly overpowered Ruby's defense and punched her across the face. "You will always fear it," Miriam spoke in a normal, human voice, "you will never understand it," she said as she carved and shredded Ruby, "but you can at least _accept_ it!" She impaled her through the chest.

Ruby sobbed. She thought of Yang, their father, uncle Qrow, anyone she had ever called a friend, and just let go of everything that still attached her to her humanity, willingly and without hesitation this time. Her right eye sparked and she lost consciousness. " _So the only way to kill you is to release the beast_?" something else in her shrieked with joy, " _It's a done deal_!" She headbutted Miriam so hard that it sent her sliding back. " _Hehehe_ … _i_ _t feels so good_ …" Ruby said with her red snake-like eyes opened disturbingly wide, " _Sanity is overrated_!"

"And with that, the shackles to this dream are broken…" Miriam whispered as she relaxed.

Ruby viciously and horrifically ripped Miriam apart with claws and blades. She hacked, cleaved, and bashed for a while before finally realizing that Miriam wasn't even trying to fight back. She just let her do as she pleased. " _Hahahahaha_!" Ruby laughed, enjoying herself too much, " _Well, if you don't mind_!" She decapitated Miriam to the point where she was nothing but a mound of body parts, but she kept slicing away at her anyways.

"Stop it!" Blake yelled as she grabbed Ruby's arm, "For your own sake, no more!"

Ruby snapped out of it and froze. Her hands reverted back to their normal shape, but kept the abnormal flesh. She stared into those palms with remorse. "I knew I'd have to give up being human. How come I never imagined giving up being me as well?" she said regretfully. She stared down at Miriam, whom was slowly coming back together. Tear her to pieces a million times and she would always come back. Ruby sighed. Almost like an instinct, she knew of one way to kill her permanently. Ruby knelt down and plunged both hands into Miriam. Being connected to her, she could almost feel the creature's relief as her arms quickly drank in and devoured her. There was nothing left of Miriam now. It was like there had never been anything there. She and Ruby were now one and the same.

There was nothing but the sound of heavy rain now. Ruby closed her eyes and tilted her head up to embrace it. She could see everything now. They were a team of four, all girls like team RWBY. They fought Cthulhu with everything they had but were twisted and remolded into an abomination. The Great Old One had taken a civilization's best and brightest and turned them against their own people. Miriam then tried to turn her fiancé into what she had become, but he fought back before taking his own life to prevent that from happening. To be honest, he bore quite a resemblance to Jaune, and Miriam was still human enough to want more than anything to simply dance with him one more time. Ruby cringed and blushed when she thought of Jaune. For some reason she suddenly felt a sexual attraction towards him. Made sense considering she had just eaten Miriam, whom had been very fond of him.

"Is this my future then?" Ruby chuckled. Miriam had _not_ chosen this willingly. She, like all the rest of the Ascended, had subconsciously _hated_ her immortal life, as shown when she pretended to be normal again just before the attack on Vale. That whole thing about saving others by giving them immortality. It was all just a load of crap. "It's my problem now." Ruby looked down and noticed that ominous dark-green book lying in the grass. Miriam had been carrying it around. In her stomach? Whatever the case, Ruby picked up and opened it. It came as no surprise that the pages were unaffected by the rain and that she could read the symbols now. Not that she expected a 'fix everything' spell, but maybe she could finally see what all the fuss was about. R'lyeh had a whole library of replicas, each made using 'human resources' so there had to be something important in it. Ruby suddenly became aware of the end of a cane being held to her ear.

"Hey there, Red." Torchwick said and blew Ruby's head off with a point-blank shot. Bloodless chunks flew everywhere and her headless body fell over. Torchwick and Neopolitan managed to stay dry by holding umbrellas over their heads, but Cinder didn't seem to mind getting soaked by the rain.

"Ah, how convenient." Cinder said as she reached down and collected the tome.

"We came out here just for some fancy book?" Torchwick scoffed.

"It's not just any book." Cinder said, putting on a satisfied smile.

Torchwick didn't look like he cared. "So, do we sell that to the highest bidder or does it actually do something?" he asked with a shrug.

The designs on Cinder's dress glowed brightly and the water she was soaked in turned to steam. "If used correctly, it can bring the whole world to its knees." she said, looking at Torchwick and shaking her head, "Could you put a price on something like that?"

Torchwick made a skeptical look. "You're seriously telling me that a book, a lump of pages with ink on them, can wield that kind of power?" he asked.

"Not the book itself. It's more like a directory, a gateway, and…" Cinder paused to glance past the trees at the school in the distance, "a beacon." She held the Necronomicon in one hand and the dark-green ceremonial dagger in the other. "Better still, we already have the means to use it." She turned and walked away from Ruby's corpse. Torchwick made one last look at Ruby, then gave a respectful nod before he and Neo followed after Cinder.

Ruby lied there motionless. Slowly, sluggishly, the pieces of her head were slithering back to that vacant spot between her shoulders. She was still really new to this 'pulling herself together' thing. Her body began to twitch a little, but she hadn't gotten the hang of moving separated body parts either. She needed to get that book back. What if there was a way to reverse what had been done to her? No, if there was, Miriam would have tried it on herself. Maybe there was still a chance for the _recently_ turned? It was a foolish thought, but she had to hope, or else there was no hope. Cinder had also said that the book could call forth power that could 'bring the whole world to its knees', and that on its own was reason enough to go after them. The world was fragile enough with Cthulhu having just woken up.

XXX

To be continued…

Ruby sprang out of bed in her padded room, throwing both hands onto her head. "Whoa! My head is spinning!" she yelled.

* * *

 **Okay, the tiny amount of views has finally gotten to me. Seeing it rarely surpass 20 daily views is kind of discouraging. I'm going to take a break. I'll probably come back to this though. I still enjoy making it and viewership is still increasing nonetheless.**

 **This is a good stopping point anyways. Consider this the end of "Volume One." A huge thank you to all that have read this far.**


	13. Chapter 13: Risky

**Wow, I have Vale come under attack in this story then it happens in the canon series a few weeks later. I swear I didn't know.**

* * *

Ruby lied in her bed, awake but bored out of her mind. They hadn't let her out since her incident, and that had been days ago. She sat up and looked around, realizing for the first time that the walls were densely covered in eldritch words, drawings of nightmarish monsters, and even a perfect illustration of the cephalopod crest from the front cover of the Necronomicon, all done in black crayon. She couldn't remember making any of it. She jumped in surprise when the door suddenly opened. A pretty nurse, perhaps in her college years, came into the room. She had long linen-white hair, amethyst purple eyes, and a her nurse outfit that was more like a white mini-dress that showed a lot of leg. This was the kind of girl that was pretty, knew it, and openly flaunted it.

"Good afternoon, huntress." the nurse said, "I hope things haven't been too boring."

"Hey Miri. What's up?" Ruby said cheerfully, happy to be talking with someone again.

"Don't worry, it's not bath time." the nurse said with a friendly giggle, "You have a visitor."

"A visitor?" Ruby smiled when she saw Yang enter the room, whom seemed shocked by the disturbing writing on the walls. Real or not, this was only place where Ruby could still see her friends. She frowned when she realized that no one else was coming. "Where's…"

"Weiss and Blake? They're…" Yang paused to search for the right words, "They're not coming."

"Oh…" Ruby sadly nodded her head in understanding. She thought of what she did to Blake, plunging a fist straight through her before _drinking_ her. She had killed her treasured friend. "I'm so sorry for what I did to Blake." Ruby whimpered, " I didn't know what I was doing!"

Yang made a weak smile and shrugged. "I know. I know." she said. She turned to the nurse and asked, "Umm, could you give us a moment please?"

Nurse Miriam bit her lip and made an apologetic look. "I would but… her doctor doesn't want her to talk to anyone without a staff member present." she said.

"It's okay, sis. She knows all about us." Ruby told her sister, "I talk to her a lot."

"Well, it's nice to see you're still making friends." Yang muttered as she sat at the edge of Ruby's bed.

"Don't lie to me, Yang." Ruby said with her arms folded over her knees. She remembered those frightened, hateful faces that had stared at her when she killed Blake. "My other friends at Beacon see me as a lost cause, don't they?"

"They still miss you, Ruby. They'll never forget." Yang said, clearly trying to avoid a straight answer.

"Neither will I…" Ruby whispered. She reflected back on a time when she had been ignorant of Cthulhu, a simpler time she would always remember. "How have things been at Beacon anyways?" she asked, wanting nothing more than to simply hear about that place again.

"It's been good. Not much has changed." Yang said, trying to sound cheerful, "We've started another year. Mr. Port is still boring, Oobleck still talks too fast, Jaune and Pyrrha are openly dating finally. Me, Weiss, and Blake are each at the top of the class." She sighed and frowned. "It hasn't been the same without our team's leader. We've got a democracy going between us but Weiss calls most of the shots."

Finally, Ruby thought of the here and now. "The others were right to move on. You shouldn't come near me anymore, Yang." she said.

"What kind of talk is that?" Yang asked heatedly, "Do you _want_ to stay here for the rest of your life?"

"I've come to accept that I can't beat what cannot be fought. The last thing I'd want is to drag you down with me." Ruby said.

Yang grabbed her little sister by the shoulders. "Listen, I will never give up on you!" she yelled, shaking her a little, "Even if _you_ give up on you!"

"Umm… I'm sorry, but…" Miriam stuttered shrinkingly. She was too intimidated to say more.

Ruby remained calm, almost stoic. "I'm not asking you to forget, just to live your life the best you can, with or without me." she said.

Yang gritted her teeth, then let go in defeat. "You act more normal but make less sense everyday!" she barked with her arms crossed.

"I've gotten used to 'crazy'." Ruby said, glancing over at Miriam, "I had help settling into it."

XXX

A large, lone airship flew at a steady pace over the open ocean surrounded by an ominous orange sky. Things could not have gone better for Torchwick and his crew. They had kept contact with the mysterious new creatures to a minimum and had gotten away with the goods. It seemed perfect, but little did they know that someone had snuck aboard when they took off. Neopolitan entered her private quarters, shut the door, and was startled when Ruby jumped out of the closet like a monster from a children's story. Besides the two demon eyes, masses of tentacles in place of hands, and torn clothes, Ruby looked good as new despite getting her head blown off a little while ago. Neo moved extremely fast, but to Ruby she may as well been a snail. Neo pulled out the sword that her umbrella acted as a sheath for and stabbed Ruby through the chest. Neo backed away with an incredulous look when Ruby didn't react.

"Uh… 'ouch' I guess?" Ruby said and then socked Neo in the face, knocking her out. She stared down at Neo, whom was lying unconscious on her bed. Ruby was planning on 'borrowing' her face, figuring that if the girl pretty much never spoke, she wouldn't have to worry too much about being in character. She thought it better to just stay quiet and observe for now. Not wanting to kill Neo, Ruby plucked one of her hairs and watched as it sank into her skin. Her body changed and she checked the mirror to see that her face, hair, and even eyes had changed to perfectly mimic Neo's. "Whoa! Cool!" Ruby said in Neo's voice. Besides the longer hair and hefty increase in breast size, she didn't feel that different. It was a very comfortable fit. Her torn clothes hadn't changed though, and that had to be addressed. Neo didn't have any spare clothes in this room, so Ruby stuffed her own clothing into a drawer, stripped Neo down to her underclothes, and threw on her outfit. Normally she'd have trouble walking on heels, but Blake and Miriam kept that from being a problem.

"Ugh…" Neo groaned and opened her eyes to see a reflection of herself before getting knocked out again.

"Hah! I could get used to this." Ruby squeaked excitedly and made a naughty grin, "I'm like a master of disguise or… or a super spy!" She made a pretend-Kung-Fu stance as if trying to look cool. She slapped duct tape onto Neo's mouth, bound her wrists and ankles together with ropes she had brought with her, then locked her in the closet. On her way to the door, her heeled-boot kicked Neo's sword on the carpet. "Oh, right. I almost forgot the umbrella." Ruby said. She picked up the sword, grabbed a tissue off the end table beside the bed, wiped her own blood off it, and slid it back into the umbrella. With it set over her shoulder, she looked completely indistinguishable from the original. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, begins now!" Ruby said as she walked out the door.

At the front of the ship was a 'living room' area, complete with couches, tables, windows with a perfect view of the ocean below, and a television turned to a news channel. The news was of course talking about whatever was going on in Vale. "-and Vale refugees have begun pouring into all three of the other kingdoms. Reports are sketchy but-" Torchwick and Cinder were sitting together at a table examining the Necronomicon. Torchwick turned his head and glanced at Ruby, whom was standing at the room's entrance with a huge, nervous grin.

"Neo? Why are you staring at us like that?" Torchwick asked. Ruby forced herself to relax and shrugged as if to say 'oh, nothing'. Torchwick nodded and went back to what he was doing.

Ruby searched around the rest of the room. At the table across from Torchwick and Cinder was someone she recognized. She had short green hair and dark skin. It was Emerald, someone whom had been falsely posing as a huntress. Ruby yelped when she felt someone spank her butt. She turned to see yet another familiar face.

"Bored too, Neo?" Mercury asked. He was a well-built young man with gray hair, a gray and black two-tone partial-zip jacket, and armor along both arms.

"Well, you took your sweet time." Emerald said to Mercury.

"I couldn't find a deck of cards." Mercury said as he held up a box of 'Remnant: The Game'. "Found a board game though. It's the only thing we got on this bucket."

Emerald sighed. "Guess we'll have to settle for that." she muttered.

Mercury went over to the table Emerald sat at, dropped the box onto it, and sat down with her. "We just need two more players." Mercury said and looked over at one of the men sitting by the television, "Hey Junior, you interested?"

Junior, the owner of a bar Yang had once demolished, walked over to the table and sat down. "Alright, I'm up for killing some time." he said.

"How about you, ice cream?" Mercury said, waving to Ruby.

Deciding that standing around and observing everyone would be suspicious, Ruby nodded and approached the table. She closed Neo's umbrella and sat down with it on her lap. 'Remnant: The Game' sometimes known as 'Risk' was a turn-based strategy game where each player would try to conquer the board map by taking control of all four kingdoms. Ruby immediately volunteered to play as Vale by tapping her finger on its place on the map. Emerald chose to play as Mistral, Junior preferred Atlas between the two that were left, and Mercury settled with playing as Vacuo.

"Funny how the kingdoms keep preaching about peace while everyone's favorite board game is about them waging war with each other." Emerald said as she looked through her hand of cards.

"Civies need ways to scratch that itch for violence from a safe distance." Mercury said.

The four of them began playing as everyone but Ruby engaged in casual conversation. Since none of them expected her to talk, she could remain silent and just listen in on them. With her enhanced hearing, she was able to overhear Torchwick and Cinder from the other side of the room at the same time.

"Necronomicon… I've heard of something like that before," Torchwick said, "but I always took it for horror fiction made for entertainment. You're telling me that this is the original?"

"Not exactly." Cinder explained. Her deceptively soothing words were like a coating of honey over her cruel spirit. "Such tomes are sometimes created by someone when they're given mad visions from the Great Old Ones. This one was made the same way, but not likely by human hands. Maybe it was made by another race far across the stars. Maybe the Great Old Ones had a more direct hand in this one's creation. Even I can't be sure."

"Hey," Mercury said, patting Ruby on the shoulder, "it's your turn now."

"Oh, sorry." Ruby said without thinking.

"Whoa! It talks!" Junior joked. Luckily, that was the only reaction it provoked. Was Neo mute or did she just not talk very much? Apparently Junior, Emerald, and Mercury weren't sure either. Just because this form came with its own voice, didn't mean that the original could use it.

It wasn't much longer before Emerald threw her card down in frustration upon getting taken out of the game. Ruby was utterly dominating the board. With more than one person in her head, she was able to play almost frighteningly well. Junior and Mercury seemed to call an unspoken truce against her, but it only bought them a few more turns. Junior lost his kingdom's capital, then only a few turns later, so did Mercury.

"Damn, we shouldn't have let you play." Emerald said to Ruby.

"How about we play again and we all team up against her?" Mercury asked.

"I think I've had my fill of board games." Junior said and got up. Ruby nodded in agreement and followed him to the television. Junior sat on the couch while Ruby sat cross-legged on a cushioned arm chair. The television was of course still tuned to a news channel with the anchorwoman Lisa Lavender on the screen.

"-have concluded that the creatures are, without a doubt, a secret biological weapon that Vale's government had created and failed to contain." said Lisa.

"Indeed. Let it be a lesson to Vale that when you play with fire, you get burned." a man in a suit and tie said, "This tragedy is an absolute disgrace, and a failure in leadership on the part of Vale's council. I wouldn't be surprised if Ozpin was in on this."

Ruby made a disgusted look at the television. "What? Those stupid reporters don't know what they're talking about!" she blurted out, then froze in shock at what she just did.

"They're just spouting what they have to believe." Cinder said, standing right behind the chair Ruby was sitting in.

Ruby threw her arm over her chair's backrest and looked up at Cinder. "Umm… have to?" she said.

"The Great Old Ones are a side of the cosmos people need to know of, but are neither willing nor able to accept." Cinder said calmly with her eyes on the television, "I've seen it all before."

"Before? How?" Ruby asked, eager to hear what Cinder knew, "I'm pretty sure this whole mess hasn't happened before."

"People have been finding signs of The Great Old Ones for centuries, but they're always shunned or thrown into a ward for trying to tell others about it." Cinder explained patiently, "A person, an individual, can catch on, but _people_ will refuse to, even if it kills them."

"Hehe, sounds about right." Torchwick chuckled, twirling his cane as he came up beside Cinder, "When something goes wrong, it's business as usual for kingdom officials to point fingers instead of fixing it." To avoid suspicion, Ruby nodded in agreement, but was then taken aback when she realized that Cinder was studying her carefully. She gulped. Was she on to her? Quickly she pretended to wonder why Cinder was looking at her like that. "Hey," Torchwick said to Cinder, "give her some space. You're creeping her out." Cinder glared at Torchwick, then without a word, turned and walked away.

"Uh, boss?" Junior spoke up, "What do we do once we finally reach Atlas?"

"I got a safe house up there for us to lay low in." Torchwick said, "We'll keep the ship prepped for launch in case of another Ascended attack."

Suddenly, without warning, Ruby's face reverted back to that of her own, her brown and pink eyes changed to those red demon ones, and her hair became dark-red and short again. She cringed as if someone had slipped ice into her pants in silent panic, then slowly turned her head to see that not a single person in the room was looking at her for the moment. She began to freak out as Torchwick started turning his head in her direction.

"Neo, could you head to the cargo bay and grab that dagger we picked up earlier?" Torchwick asked leisurely. He was then taken aback when he saw that 'Neo' had hurriedly opened her umbrella to hide her face. "You alright there, Neo?" Torchwick asked.

Ruby raised a finger as if to say 'one moment please' and began heading toward Neopolitan's room. Her eyes were practically bulging as she slowly walked by everyone unnoticed. On her way out, she threw the umbrella onto her shoulder to cover the back of her head from them.

"Hey! Hold on just a second!" Mercury yelled angrily. Ruby froze, trembling in those heeled boots. "While you're in there, could you pick up a few snacks for us?" Mercury asked politely, "Bags of chips, granola bars, canned foods, the works." Beside him, Emerald made an irritated look at her own stomach as it growled.

Ruby began to walk again, but only made one step before Torchwick spoke up. "Neo, don't forget what Cinder told us. Do not take it out of the toolbox we threw it in. Just bring the whole thing here."

Ruby hurried out just as Junior tried to speak to her next. She was starting to get how this assimilation thing worked. With only a hair, her disguise would last for just a couple of minutes. She needed a body part to make it last for days as Miriam had with Weiss's form. Ruby returned to Neo's room and went straight to the closet. Neo was still sitting in there, awake and looking angry. Ruby plucked a number of her hairs, absorbing one and stuffing the rest in her back pocket.

XXX

Ruby returned to the ship's living room, carrying plastic bins full of food that stacked all the way up to the ceiling.

"Whoa!" Emerald recoiled in mild surprise, "Isn't that a bit heavy for you?"

Ruby calmly placed the tall stack of plastic bins onto the table Emerald sat at with no sign of effort or even interest. Oddly, Mercury seemed to be missing. After surveying the room to find that nothing else was different, Ruby acrobatically leapt up, swiped the toolbox off the top of the stack, and landed on the floor with it. She tipped the lid open to peak at the dagger inside. Whether Cinder knew what she was dealing with or not, Ruby figured that nothing good could come out of anything related to The Great Old Ones. Still, she wanted to at least see how the dagger could be used with the Necronomicon. Did Miriam know? It was hard to tell. Pretty much all of that girl's memories felt like long forgotten dreams.

"That's a funny looking rock." Emerald said, standing beside Ruby as she inspected the ceremonial dagger.

"Alright, got our unfortunate little prisoner here." Mercury said as he came into the room, "What's next?" He shoved a bruised, wounded faunus girl onto the floor. Ruby's eyes went wide when she got a good look at who. She'd thought those bunny ears looked familiar.

"We offer her as a sacrifice." Cinder said as she took the toolbox from Ruby.

"You're going to stab her to death in the ship's living room?" Emerald gasped, seemingly disturbed by the idea.

"Haha, sweet." Mercury chuckled in amusement.

"Not here, and it isn't blood that this dagger draws when-" Cinder paused when she opened the toolbox to find that it was empty. She made a hostile glare at 'Neo', whom pretended to look surprised before shrugging innocently.

"That's weird. I saw you toss it in that box myself." Torchwick said.

Cinder walked up to 'Neo' and stared down at her. The pink and brown haired girl clearly wasn't holding the dagger or hiding it on her person. "Curious that it could just disappear like that." Cinder said.

"Yeah, I just saw it in there a second ago," Emerald said beside Ruby, "with my own eyes."

Cinder frowned at Emerald then turned and walked away, appearing to lose interest in Ruby. "This isn't the best time or place for it anyways." she said, then stopped to look back at Ruby, "I'm sure the dagger will turn up soon enough." She continued out of the room.

"How can you people be so cruel? Especially at a time like this?" Velvet Scarlatina of team CFVY said as she reached up and grabbed the table beside her to stand up. Apparently her leg was broken. Mercury roundhouse kicked her back onto the floor. Velvet looked up to see Neopolitan kneeling down in front of her, staring with a shocked, concerned face. "You… you don't seem like the others." Velvet whispered. Her eyes went to Torchwick as he walked up to her, smiling and twirling his cane again.

"Oh how it pains me to see a rabbit that can't hop." Torchwick said with sarcastic pity, "It's a shame that euthanizing it will have to wait." He whacked Velvet in the face and knocked her out.

XXX

Ruby sat at the edge of Neo's bed, still wearing Neo's clothes and face as she waited patiently. She had wanted to see what Cinder knew, but decided in a heartbeat that she would rather help Velvet, just as soon as she was certain that at least Torchwick and Cinder were asleep. Ruby rolled her shirt up and the ceremonial dagger rose out of the skin of her belly. It fell toward the floor, she caught it, then she studied it for a moment. Cinder had said that stabbing someone with this thing would draw something in place of blood. Did it rip people's souls out or something? As stupid as that sounded, it would explain why it was harmless to The Ascended like Ruby and Miriam. After making one last look at the dark-green piece of stone, metal, physical evil, or whatever the heck it was, Ruby slapped it back onto her belly and let it sink back into her stomach, her perfect hiding place. She couldn't help but wonder though. If the dagger and book interacted, why were they kept so far apart?

" _Because even we fear its power_ …" something whispered in Ruby's ear.

"Huh? Miri?" Ruby said as she looked around, but she saw no one.

An hour passed and all of the airship's passengers seemed to retire to their rooms, though a few crew members maintaining the ship's course were still out and about. Ruby peaked out of the door to 'her' room and saw that most of the lights were turned off. With a laid-back demeanor, she walked out into the hall, acting like she had every right to be here and was probably just going to get a drink of water. She passed by a door through which she could hear Cinder and Torchwick arguing with each other. She wondered what kind of relationship those two had if they were casually alone together in a bedroom with the door closed. Sure, they were adults but…

"-that something feels… off about her." Cinder said.

"A gut feeling?" Torchwick spat, "That's seriously all you have to go on?"

"Oh Roman, I don't think you understand how grave things have become." Cinder said tenderly, "There is _no_ taking risks with The Great Old Ones. If an Ascended _has_ consumed and replaced Neo-"

"If one has, why doesn't it just kill us all and get it over with?" Torchwick jeered, "I've seen these things in action. If one was in our midst, it wouldn't _need_ to hide and wait for the right time."

"Indeed…" Cinder said thoughtfully, "that's what's bothering me."

Ruby made a sigh of relief. Cinder didn't know, she just suspected. Being as quiet as she could, Ruby snuck by and searched around the rest of the ship for Velvet. This place thankfully wasn't that big. Ruby came across more than a couple of crew members during her search, but none of them dared question her. After a while, she finally caved in and just asked the next crewman she saw, "Where's the prisoner being held?"

XXX

Velvet lied on the floor of her dark metal cell, seeming more miserable than scared. The door opened Ruby walked in, still disguised as Neo. "Oh, it's you again." Velvet said, squinting at her, "Who… are you?"

"I…" Ruby hesitated. The last time she had seen Velvet was when she killed Blake. Shape-shifting her head to its original appearance probably wouldn't put her friend at ease either. "It doesn't matter who I am. I'm gonna get you out of here." she said, deciding that ignorance was bliss.

"How? We're in the middle of the ocean." Velvet asked dejectedly.

Ruby cringed. She hadn't thought through any of this. What was she planning to do after busting Velvet out of her cell again? Toss her off the ship and into the middle of the ocean? "Umm, well…" Ruby stuttered, "We'll figure something out, but for now they wont kill you." She brought out the dagger, making it look like she slipped it out from her sleeve when it had really come out of her wrist. "I sorta' stole this. They want to sacrifice you for something, but they can't complete the ritual without it." she said as she put the dagger away, "I wish I could do more but…"

"It's the best you can do. I can't possibly ask for more." Velvet said, seeming awfully grateful for what Ruby thought was basically no help at all. Velvet sure was humble and modest.

"Well, uh… I'll come get you if we luck out. Be ready for it!" Ruby said as she stepped out and began closing the door.

"Sure thing." Velvet said, still a bit perplexed by the surprise good fortune.

Ruby shut the door and huffed in frustration at not knowing what to do. She couldn't just wait until this ship reached Atlas. Cinder would probably just kill Velvet and abduct civilians instead. Ruby couldn't impersonate Cinder; she'd never be able to pass herself off as her. "I could… kill everyone on the ship…" Ruby whispered, "I mean, they aren't nice people." It was a dark thought, but she had already started down that path.

XXX

To be continued…


	14. Chapter 14: Nefarious

**I cannot thank you all enough for the flattering, encouraging words.**

 **Now, let's get back to killing off your favorite characters. Don't say I didn't warn ya'.**

* * *

Cinder and Torchwick seemed to have moved on from their argument and were now talking about contacts, turncoats, and other people they knew in Atlas. The door silently creaked open and a thin, inconspicuous tentacle slithered into the room, bending and stretching all the way to the shelf that the Necronomicon sat on. The tentacle grabbed it, heaved it out the door before it was quietly closed, all without Cinder or Torchwick noticing.

Out in the hallway, Ruby shoved the book into her stomach, though it wasn't an easy fit. It wouldn't be long before those two noticed that the book was gone. Ruby headed back toward Neo's room, but was startled to find that the door was open with the light on. She retreated back into the dark to observe, and could tell through her enhanced hearing that two people were in there. Judging by the sounds of drawers being pulled out and cupboards getting thrown open, they were clearly searching for something.

"Why would she think Neo took it anyways?" Mercury asked, "Sometimes I wish Cinder would just share a little more with us."

"You know what would happen if we questioned her." Emerald said.

"Yeah, yeah. 'Don't think, obey'. I heard her." Mercury said fractiously.

Although Mercury and Emerald couldn't hear it, Ruby could tell that Neo was shaking around and uttering muffled yells to make noise and get their attention. Just as Emerald was about to pull out the drawer that Ruby had stuffed her clothes into, Ruby came into the room and knocked on the door frame to get their attention. She made a face as if offended that they would search through her room behind her back.

"Oh! Neo! Hello." Emerald said, putting on a smile as if trying to act innocent.

Ruby threw her arms up and made an angry face as if to ask, 'what do you think you're doing?!'

"Chill out. To be honest, we don't know why we're here." Mercury said condescendingly. His expression changed to a more serious one. "But I think you do. You better watch out, ice cream, cause whatever you've done, it pissed off Cinder." he said harshly.

Ruby motioned for them to leave by pointed out the door, and they complied. When they were gone, Ruby shut the door and looked around. Thankfully they never got far enough to find her clothes, or worse, Neo herself, but it was clear that Ruby couldn't keep up the charade for much longer. Suddenly, she spotted a tiny device the size of a grain of rice sitting at the foot of a table lamp. She would never have spotted it if her senses were still that of a human's. She reached over to pick it up between her fingers and inspect it. Did Mercury and Emerald seriously just bug this room? It would explain why they didn't mind getting sent out. Ruby crunched the surveillance gadget. She had no doubts that there more, and if she tried looking for them, there would be no way to know if she got them all. Deciding that this room was now off-limits, she left, bending the door handle on her way out so that it couldn't be turned.

XXX

The ship's living room area was now pitch dark. The lights were off, no one else was here, and there was nothing but empty darkness in the windows. Ruby walked over to the table she'd played a board game on earlier, sat down, and pulled the book out from her stomach before placing it on the table. She stared down at the book's sinister front cover, taking a deep breath as she slowly opened it to the first page. Like earlier, she was able to understand the freaky symbols, but she couldn't translate them to anything comparable to the English language. Instead they came off as impressions, concepts, whole ideas that would need a few sentences to explain. Just thinking about what each one meant put enormous strain on her mind, and she had to stop and look away for a moment repeatedly. The book was divided into countless sections each dedicated to different a deity. One was illustrated as a fish-man, seemingly described as a god of fertility, but everything else written about him was too hard of a puzzle to make sense of. Another that was far easier to read was about a creature called Ghroth, a literal living planet with a huge eye on it that roamed around space eating planets and emitting some kind of sound that awoke Great Old Ones. The next page featured the startling image of a slimy humanoid elephant demon with large webbed ears, enormous tusks, and a leech-like mouth on the end of the trunk. Ruby skimmed through dozens of inconceivable profiles until one suddenly caught her eye. "Bestows unfathomable knowledge onto others…" she muttered. She made her best effort to take in everything she could about this one, reading aloud as she went to make it easier. The words she uttered were cruel to the ears, full of hard consonants, and sounded like a monster throwing up backwards. When she got to the end of the page, she recoiled in surprise when the book suddenly came alive. The symbols and images on the pages moved like they were floating on water and the entire book just seemed… hungry… if that made any sense. "No, no, no!" Ruby panicked, "Turn off! Shut down! Deactivate!" The room's lights turned on.

"Step away from the Necronomicon, Ruby Rose!" Cinder said as she entered the room, holding Velvet in a chokehold. A fireball was generated from Cinder's palm and held against the side of Velvet's head. Mercury and Emerald came into the room behind them looking confused and astonished.

"What? Ruby?" Velvet said with surprise.

Ruby sprang from the table to the open floor looking shocked, then gritted her teeth in anger. "For _your_ sake, you better not hurt her." she hissed. She was using her original voice again, but she still had Neo's face and hair.

"If we both get what we want, there would be no need for anyone to get hurt." Cinder said with a gracious smile, "Now, I believe you have something that belongs to me."

"Forget about me, Ruby." Velvet said, "Just stop them, whatever they're planning."

"Hmph, the dagger." Ruby mumbled to herself, still able to feel the dagger inside her stomach, "I have it in Neo's room." she lied to Cinder, "If you move aside, I can go get it for you."

"No need." Cinder said, still pleasantly smiling, "Just tell us where you hid it."

Ruby folded her hands behind her back. Her left pinky finger stretched straight down, stabbing through the floor and traveling under it like a tunneling worm. She just had to stall. "Hehe… believe me, you're gonna need me to point it out for you." she said.

Cinder frowned, quickly going from pleasant to impatient. "You're not leaving this room unless I have the dagger or your friend is dead." she said bitterly.

"Cinder," Mercury spoke up, "do you want us to just beat her up?"

"No. The two of you together would be no match for her." Cinder said without taking her eyes of Ruby.

"No match for her?" Emerald said disbelievingly, "I've seen her fight. She isn't-"

"This isn't the 'Ruby' you remember." Cinder said more darkly, "She's different now."

"Wow," Ruby said with an impressed nod, "You sure know a lot about… _them_. I've been wondering how, but I guess it doesn't matter _when I already have a better source_." Her voice transitioned to its monstrous tone. Her finger sprang out from the floor like a spear at the hand Cinder generated the fireball from. It stabbed into Cinder's wrist and Ruby was now able to control that hand like a puppet on strings, allowing her to force Cinder to dissipate the fireball. Ruby's right hand changed into a tentacle that reached out, grabbed Velvet like a lasso, and yanked her to Ruby's side of the room.

Cinder pulled her wrist off what impaled it as Mercury and Emerald leapt at Ruby to attack. Ruby retracted her pinky finger and stopped Mercury's jump kick with one hand. She lightly pushed back and sent him flying into the wall, almost breaking through it. Emerald swung her chain-sickles but Ruby avoided them without really needing to try. Emerald resorted to using her semblance of perception manipulation to throw Ruby off, but Ruby's enhanced senses could see straight through it. She dodged the next attack, moved forward, and flicked Emerald in the forehead. Emerald fell back like she had been punched as a small stream of blood leaked down her face.

"I did tell them." Cinder said, seamlessly ignoring the pain in her wrist as she generated glass dual swords in her hands. Ruby moved to deal with her next, thinking she could bring her down just as easily, but Cinder moved significantly faster than Mercury or Emerald had and slashed Ruby across the chest.

"Gah! Son of a-" Ruby yelled in pain.

"Ruby!" Velvet cried.

Ruby motioned her to stay back. "Don't worry! I'm okay!" she said. Cinder created some darts of fire and sent them at Ruby. They hit, engulfing Ruby in flames but she managed to remain standing with her clothes now burnt and torn, bearing her original appearance again. Now taking Cinder seriously, Ruby hardened her fists to the likeness of steel and went on the offensive. She may have been a lot stronger and faster, but Cinder was far more skilled. They fought, and Cinder was able to keep up with Ruby in their melee.

"What in blazes did you do to yourself?" Mercury said as he tried to intervene, but Velvet kicked him in the face with her good leg.

"That was for earlier, I suppose." Velvet said shyly, almost sounding apologetic.

Cinder flipped backwards, combining her dual swords into its bow form and fired three arrows at once in midair. Arrows stabbed into Ruby's knee, waist, and left eye causing her to falter from the pain she was not yet used to. As she pulled out the arrow in her eye, Cinder used the opportunity to cut her clean in half through the waist. The ceremonial dagger fell out from the opening. Ruby landed on the floor and looked at her lower half lying a few feet away. "Oh, c'mon!" she groaned in frustration.

"I know this wont kill you," Cinder said, generating a massive fireball from her good hand and pointing it at Ruby below, "but it'll keep you down long enough for me to toss you off the ship." Velvet suddenly tackled her.

"Stop hurting my friend!" Velvet cried. Cinder shoved her back and redirected the fireball at her. Velvet screamed as she was engulfed in flames like Ruby had been, but when the smoke cleared, instead of someone still standing there, there was only a charred, smoking body. Ruby finished putting herself back together when she took notice, and stared with a completely stunned look on her face. Even after what she had done and what she had become, the last thing Velvet had spoken was to call her 'friend'.

"Too bad, so sad." Mercury said sarcastically. He fired a shot from his boot at Ruby, cautious of getting to close to her. Ruby didn't react when the shot shredded through her hip, nor did she when she was hit by another, and another. Finally Mercury leapt forward and knocked her back down with a kick, but she still kept that look of disbelief. Was Velvet… gone? When Mercury kicked at Ruby again, she turned her enraged face and grabbed him by the ankle. He was flipped onto his back when she grabbed onto his other ankle… then she ripped him in two like a wishbone.

" _Hmph_ …" Ruby grumbled like a beast, covered in blood and having one of her episodes again. She lunged forward and threw a punch at Cinder, smashing through her blades like a rock through a window and striking her in the gut. Cinder flew backwards into the wall. " _You wanted this so badly_?" Ruby said as she reached down to pick up the ceremonial dagger, " _I'll give it to you_!" She approached Cinder and slashed at her with the knife, but Emerald dived in the way to block it with her sickle at the last second. The dagger made a shallow cut in Emerald's finger.

"Huh?!" Emerald gasped, looking at her finger as the bloodless, withered line on it rapidly began to expand. "Aaahhh _hhhhhhhh_!" she screamed as the rest of her entire body began to dry up, become a shriveled prune of a standing corpse, then literally turn to a pile of dust and ashes on the floor.

Ruby fell backwards with a horrified expression. The shock of what she'd just seen had snapped her out of her frenzy. "Whoa! What the unholy crap?!" she cried in dismay. She wasn't the only one freaking out, as even Cinder seemed to back off and completely forget about their fight. They watched as a transparent mist-like stream traveled out of the ash pile and moved to the Necronomicon, which drank it in. "So, it really does rip people's souls out…" Ruby said incredulously. The atmosphere of the room completely changed. The air grew freezing, the lights flickered and died, and there was an overwhelming feeling of dread. They could feel that a new presence had entered the room, but they couldn't see it.

"You fool! You read from _that_ passage?!" Cinder cried. She fled the room looking uncharacteristically terrified.

"Huh? What?" Ruby uttered as she watched Cinder withdraw. Cinder had left the book and dagger behind without a fight and for what seemed like no reason. Ruby looked around the room, finding that nothing had changed, and yet it felt incredibly different. She flinched when she heard Velvet make a choking cough. "Velvet?! You're alright!" Ruby said, running over to and kneeling beside her friend.

"I wouldn't say 'alright'." Velvet said as Ruby helped her sit up. Velvet's torso and a portion of her face was horribly burnt and still smoking.

"There's a first aid kit in the cargo bay. I'd get it but I don't want you out of my sight. Can you stand?" Ruby asked.

"I… I think so." Velvet said as she put an arm over Ruby's shoulder. She grunted but worked through the pain as she was slowly brought to her feet. "What little aura I still had took most of that blast. I only took second-degree burns." she said.

"Only?" Ruby said with discomfort.

"It could've been much worse." Velvet said, eying the bloody dismembered remains of Mercury and the pile of ash that used to be Emerald. Taking it slow, they turned and headed for the doorway. "How did…" Velvet began to ask, but stopped herself, "I wont ask how you put yourself back together after getting cut in half."

"Yeah, you wont. Just lean on me." Ruby said as they exited the room. They entered the now lifelessly dark hallways that seemed to stretch on much further than she remembered. They got to the door for the cargo bay, opened it, and… stared down another long hallway, exactly like the one they had just walked through. "What the?!" Ruby barked.

"That's strange. I know this ship can't be that large." Velvet said.

"It isn't…" Ruby said. They went down this hallway as well, opened what should have been the door to the cargo bay, and found another mimic of the same hallway, except this one seemed to unnaturally twist and curve. They turned around and tried to head back the way they came, but the hall was now even more disorienting, as if someone had taken the image of it and mixed up in a soup. "Oh no," Ruby whimpered, "no, no, no! Not another R'lyeh!"

"You sound like you've seen this before." Velvet said woozily. She seemed to be getting a headache by just looking at it.

"Close your eyes! Don't look at it!" Ruby said shaking her head, "Just follow my lead." They continued on slowly, though the walls traveled past them faster than they walked. "Gah!" they both yelped as they tripped and fell face-first onto a soft, shifting surface. Ruby brought her head up, picked up some of the ground, and watched as it slipped between her fingers. "Sand?" she said dumbfounded. She looked ahead at what she couldn't put a word on. There were thin streams of sand falling up, sideways, and diagonally. Spires that seemed to go on forever ran in all directions like a giant messy haystack. This place was as dry as R'lyeh was moist, and it was hard to tell if it was a large room or 'outside'. An array of things floating around in empty blackness described it better. It was also unclear which way was what, though the way forward felt like 'down'. "I guess reality went on another lunch break." Ruby said.

"It's so cold!" Velvet said, shivering madly, "Is this some sort of illusion Cinder conjured up?"

"Illusion or not, this isn't Cinder's doing." Ruby said wearily.

"Then who?" Velvet asked curiously.

Ruby looked around. She couldn't see it, but she knew that something had been watching them from the start. "Hey, why don't you make a triangle with five-and-a-half right angles?!" she shouted at whomever was toying with them, "You may as well add an ascending staircase that loops while you're at it!"

"You didn't read from the Necronomicon just for a show." said a new voice.

Ruby and Velvet freaked out when they noticed a man that was not a man standing on the sand in front of them. Ruby didn't know when or how he'd gotten there. He was just suddenly there. The man had pitch-black skin, not African, but like physical darkness. He was dressed like an ancient pharaoh complete with one of those headdress-crown-things called a 'Nemes'. He didn't have eyes or a nose, just a huge mouth of long sharp teeth where the face should have been. Ruby felt herself tilt her head over and bow before him without having any idea why.

"It's been some time since one from this planet has asked for my attention." the pharaoh said in a sinister, but perfectly clear voice, "You have it."

Ruby slowly stood up, her gaze locked on the tall, sinister man. Considering what was written of the other deities in the Necronomicon, this guy didn't look too bad. He wasn't a walking-mountain and he wasn't trying to kill her or Velvet yet, but Ruby couldn't take her eyes off of him. His presence was just so overpowering, and yet it felt like this wasn't all of him. Nowhere near all of him. "Umm, so do you grant wishes?" Ruby asked, nervously trying to be hopeful.

"Sometimes I do, but you don't want anything given to you." the pharaoh said. Absolutely no expression could be seen in him. He was like a black hole of sentiment.

Ruby raised both eyebrows. "Err… I can think of a few things." she said awkwardly.

"You think of what has befallen Blake and your home Vale. You wish for it to all be taken back." the scary-pharaoh-thing said.

Ruby gulped. Could this guy read her mind or did he just know everything? "Yeah… if you don't mind me asking, who you are?" she asked.

"A servant." was the pharaoh's reply.

"Okay, mister Servant, sir." Ruby said, feeling a little better with how this thing was acknowledging and answering her questions, "The book said that you share knowledge with others. Would you happen to know how I could become human again?"

"I typically demonstrate such things to mortals during public exhibitions," the pharaoh said, "but you want your answer quickly." He reached out and tapped his finger against Ruby's forehead.

Ruby suddenly felt as if her brain had been blasted by a bolt of lightning. " _Gaaaaah_!" she screamed and fell to the ground, breathing hard as blood leaked from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Indescribable images and sounds raced through her mind, things that her head just couldn't process. It felt like she had gotten the knowledge she asked for, but it was so great that her mind had been crushed under its weight. Like a traumatic memory that needed to be shed to survive, she immediately forgot the knowledge she had just been granted.

"You seek knowledge, but only a return to ignorance will satisfy you." the pharaoh said.

"Ruby!" Velvet shouted, running to her friend's side.

"I'm fine!" Ruby gurgled out through the blood in her mouth, "It's not as bad as getting my head blown off."

"What? How would you know that?!" Velvet asked sounding dumbfounded.

Ruby tried to look at the pharaoh through her red, murky vision. "I'm betting you knew that would happen!" she croaked at him, "You're just interested in torturing us, aren't you?!" The pharaoh didn't answer and just stared at her. "You know what? Forget I asked you anything!" Ruby shouted, "Just let us out of here or I'll… I'll…"

The pharaoh waved at her to come closer. "Try it." he ordered.

"If you insist." Ruby said as she stood up, "Huh?" She suddenly realized that she was holding Crescent Rose in its scythe form, though the blade was still missing from when Miriam had broken it. Ruby looked down upon herself and found that she was no longer in burnt rags, but in her personal outfit again, and it was back in perfect condition. "How did…"

"You are most accustomed to your scythe." the pharaoh said. A new blade appeared on Crescent rose, shaped exactly like the original but made of the same dark-green material as the dagger.

Ruby didn't bother to inspect the strange new blade. "Whatever bargain you're trying to make, I don't want any part of it!" she declared angrily.

"The only price is that you use if freely, without restraint." the pharaoh said.

"Fine with me!" Ruby yelled as she swung Crescent Rose at the pharaoh. She cut into Velvet, whom was suddenly standing in the pharaoh's place, looking as shocked as Blake had been. Ruby leapt back in horror and dropped her scythe. Velvet fell onto the sand with that frightened expression frozen on her face.

"Now you will tell yourself that this isn't real." the pharaoh said, standing beside Ruby and speaking into her ear, "You will deny that anything could be wrong." The pharaoh knelt down over Velvet and tapped his finger on her forehead. She gasped back to life, sat up, and clutched where she had been partially cut in half. "You will cling to the idea that you have any control." the pharaoh added. Ruby reached out with both hands, grabbed Velvet by the throat, and began choking her to death. She stared with a look terror into her friend's equally frightened eyes. Ruby's hands were just moving on their own and she couldn't stop. Finally, she snapped Velvet's neck and left her dead on the sand a second time.

"This can't… this isn't… I wouldn't…" Ruby said, staring down at Velvet's corpse looking heartbroken.

"Ow!" Velvet cried as she sprang back to life again, "What happened? Why is my neck so stiff?" Ruby kicked up her scythe, caught it, and quickly chopped her friend to pieces. She could never want this, yet it didn't actually feel like she was being forced to do it against her will. It was honestly impossible to tell the difference between her own actions and whatever the pharaoh made her do.

"Stop it! Why would you make me do this?!" Ruby sobbed.

"It takes no effort." the pharaoh said.

"But what do you get from this?! Don't you have anything better to do?!" Ruby wailed.

"Rather than ignoring the ants as Cthulhu and my master does, I prefer to burn them with a magnifying glass." the pharaoh said as he reached out with one hand and shoved Ruby, sending her flying backwards. "Hei! Aa-shanta 'nygh!" the pharaoh said as Ruby smashed through the image of the twisted abyss behind her like it was a glass picture and fell out the window of the airship toward the ocean below. With her hands reaching out, she watched the pharaoh standing inside the airship's living room, encircled by the Necronomicon, the ceremonial dagger, and the bloody remains of Velvet, until the sight fell out of view. Ruby and her scythe fell side-by-side as the black surface of the ocean zoomed closer. She plunged into nothingness.

 _Show them gods and deities,_

 _Blind and keep the people on their knees!_

 _Pierce the sky, escape your fate,_

 _The more you try the more you'll just breed hate,_

 _And lies, truth will rise,_

 _Revealed by mirrored eyes!_

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **You probably already realized, but that was from RWBY Volume 2's end credits theme titled 'Sacrifice'.**


	15. Chapter 15: Starfish Language

It was hard to recall, but Ruby was almost certain that something had come by and fished her out of the water. She was brought on board some kind of transport, maybe a boat, then carried off at a speed no man-made vessel should have been capable of. Her thoughts were muddled as if she was half… no, mostly asleep. Everything was a blur and things moved without a sense of time. It seemed like she had been sedated, though considering the changes in her biology, it was hard to image what could possibly do that to her. Before she knew it, she seemed to be in the middle of a horrible freezing blizzard. Through the raging snow and furious winds, she caught a brief glimpse of bare, bleak, blackish structures in the distance more vast than a skyscraper could ever be; a jagged line of witch-like cones and pinnacles. She was lying down and seemed to be… _flying_ through the air toward these things, but she blacked out before she could see anymore. She awoke to the sight of a frozen mountain range, apparently having flown past those strange towers without a clue on how much time had passed. She seemed to be in a small aircraft, the likes of which didn't resemble anything she recognized. She was not only sedated, but restrained to some sort of operating table as well. She heard strange piping noises, felt a jab in the upper-arm, then blacked out again. She woke up once more when the piping noises escalated to the likeness of shouting and arguing. While still stuck to an operating table, she was being moved through a massive artificial stone interior filled with strange equipment. A laboratory? She came to a stop as something like an operatory light was brought over her face and switched on.

"What? But I don't need my teeth cleaned." Ruby groaned, wishing she could cover her eyes right now. She blinked and slowly became more aware of what was going on. Four strange figures were looming over her. Atlas personnel? There was nothing else they could be if they'd found her floating in the ocean so close to Atlas's shoreline, but the tools they held seemed pretty strange even for Atlas standard's. A device that looked like a leaf blower made of stone was aimed at her. The water from her soaking wet clothes slowly levitated off of her and moved into the device like a slow motion magnet to staples, leaving her perfectly dry. There were about a dozen other strange, and in some cases, impossible looking devices held by… wait a second… did she just count twenty hands across four people? Maybe she had just gotten a _third_ world to debate the realness of.

The mystery folk weren't uttering words, but seemingly playing nonexistent flutes at each other. The piping noises sounded rather screechy and irritating to the ears. The silhouettes of these guys seemed to stand up pretty high, six or seven feet tall at least. One of them was holding Crescent Rose, opening it to its scythe form and inspecting the blade that radiated a dark, evil aura. Another was inspecting Myrtenaster but seemed to quickly lose interest in it and set it aside. They continued to tinker, casually inspecting Ruby and her belongings as they set up their equipment for what was probably going to be a 'closer look'. Whoever they were, they definitely behaved like scientists.

"Hello?! Are you just going to pretend I'm not awake?" Ruby yelled, but she was given no response. The idea of separating her hand from her wrist to free herself came to mind, but when she tried, the metal somehow changed shape and stretched in response. It had to be some kind of magic… or technology so advanced that it was indistinguishable from magic. The lamp over Ruby's face was switched off and she finally had a clear view of the beings studying her. They were slimy creatures with starfish-like heads bearing five eyes and they each had five leathery wings and appendages all around their barrel-shaped torsos. It was hard to say if they were plant-like, insect-like, marine, or all of the above. The only distinction between these four were the colors of their heads, one being yellow, one being dark-orange, one being red, and one being dark-green. Ruby started to panic. She had never seen these things before, but Miriam was more than familiar with them. "Elder…" she whispered. Were these things going to dissect her?! Those tools held in some of their appendages certainly looked like they could cut her open.

The Elder Things seemed to be communicating by making piping sounds through their breathing tubes, and to Ruby's surprise, she could somehow make out a few words such as 'sequences', 'adaptation', 'primitive', and 'implications'. Apparently the Ascended had learned their language some time ago. Ruby morphed parts of her throat and began to choke out guttural sounds that resembled the noises that the Elder Things were making. It hurt her throat like there was a rock stuck in it.

" _Hello, can you understand me_?" Ruby tried to ask them.

" _This one speaks our language, poorly_." was the equivalent of what the dark-green one said.

" _It expresses curiosity, not fear like the last subject_." said the yellow one.

" _What do you want with me_?" Ruby piped.

" _Tear you apart, see how you work, put you back together in a different way_." said the dark-green one.

Ruby gulped. She had never felt so meek in her life. Was that an attempt at humor? Did the Elder Things have any concept of humor? " _Is that_ _… is that necessary_?" she asked.

" _Subject heart rate has greatly increased. It still retains some level of individuality._ " said yellow.

" _Originally human, eighty-seven percent Star Spawn deoxyribonucleic acid code, unlike any past hybrid yet encountered, will investigate_." said red.

Ruby looked around from one Elder Thing to the next. According to what Miriam knew of them, the Elder Things were an intelligent, prideful race. For the most part they wanted to be left alone, but they could be curious too. Of all the strange races out there, this was the only one that seemed to be comparable to humans. They built things, created a civilization, wrote, created, learned, taught. Maybe it wasn't impossible to reason with them. " _Excuse me, sirs_?" Ruby hacked out, " _If you have questions, I'll answer anything_!"

" _Instinct for self-preservation has made it desperate_." the dark-green one said, almost seeming entertained.

The dark-orange headed Elder Thing leaned over Ruby. " _Passion, good manners, will inform it_." it said.

Ruby wasn't quite sure if it meant that it appreciated her 'passion' and 'good manners' or if it was willing to show them to her. " _I'm all ears._ " she said.

" _Subject is not purely audio receptors. 'All ears', clearly a human expression_." said the red-headed Elder Thing.

The dark-orange one seemed to remain patient, or whatever their equivalent of patience was. " _One of millions to be indirectly touched by Cthulhu, unique in that it has perfectly bonded with his essence, theoretically impossible_." he said.

"I'm unique?" Ruby blurted out in English, "Uh I mean, _what do you mean by that_?" she said in the Elder Thing's language.

" _Essence of Cthulhu and Star Spawn is too much for any human or faunus to handle. Each hybrid compensates by carrying a pale imitation of just one of their aspects, different strains, which there are thousands. Change shape, strong hides, flight_." dark-orange said.

" _Oh, that all fits really well actually_." Ruby said.

" _First known subject to bare more than one strain._ " dark-orange continued, " _You have the potential to carry many more_. _Intriguing_."

" _Stop coddling the subject_. _Beneath you_." the dark-green Elder Thing butted in.

" _Can be more efficient this way. Patience_." orange said to green, then directed all five of his eyes at Ruby. " _Answer this. Your eye color before alteration_?"

"Uh, _I had_ _silver eyes. Why_?" Ruby asked.

" _As speculated, exceptional human individual with trait inherited from female parental unit. Unique reaction when merging with Star-Spawn essence_." yellow said.

"Female par… what?" Ruby uttered in English. For some reason there was no word for 'mother' in their language. As she cleared her throat, she noticed for the first time that there was some kind of black choker or collar around her neck. It looked like leather, felt like metal, and was flexible like plastic. " _A collar_? _Are you guys trying to make me your pet_?" Ruby asked, appalled by the thought.

" _Not pet_. _Purpose is to suppress psionic signal_. _Disconnects you from hybrid hive mind_. _Meant to prevent other hybrids from tracking you to this location_." dark-orange explained.

"Oh, cool! _Thank you_!" Ruby said, pleasantly surprised by the news.

" _Gratitude is misplaced. Dissection will be succeeded by disposal_." dark-green said.

"Say wha… but I… _that will not be necessary_." Ruby said nervously. It was easy to pick this dark-green one as the one she liked the least. " _Your kind once fought a war with Cthulhu, right_?" she asked.

" _Correction, we lost a war with Cthulhu_. _We have managed to survive ever since by avoiding him_." said red.

" _Yeah okay_!" Ruby barked dismissively, " _The point is, the very things that threaten you also threaten humanity_! _We can help each other_!"

" _A moot point. You are an enemy of humanity_." said yellow.

" _No I am not_!" Ruby piped loudly. She tried to bang her fist on the dissection table but instead just rattled her restraints. " _Changing what I am has not changed who I am_! _I still think of_ Vale _as my home_! _I still want to protect my friends_!"

" _In your nature to assimilate these friends, even against your will. Say this is not why you chose to distance yourself from them, if you can_." was yellow's response. Ruby stared back looking speechless. It was true. Be it one year or one-thousand years, it would only be a matter of time before she submitted as Miriam had.

" _Typical human behavior, defiant on the behalf of peers they have formed attachments to_." said red.

" _What_? _Are you going to tell me that love is a weakness or something_?" Ruby said out of spite.

" _No, altruism is beneficial to a species_." orange said in what felt like a considerate, benign manner, " _May shorten an individual's lifespan, often furthers its species as a whole. Comparable to ants or bees, sacrifice selves for greater good of the species. Highly successful strategy_."

"Oh…" Ruby murmured as she calmed down. She couldn't help but reflect on something Oobleck had once told her. "Killing one human will only bring more." she whispered to herself, "Right." If dark-green was the one she liked the least, dark-orange was the one she disliked the least. Maybe these Elder Things weren't all bad. " _Can I call you_ Patrick?" Ruby asked.

Orange seemed taken aback. " _Prefer not_." he said.

" _I am going to call you_ Patrick." Ruby said.

" _Had enough of your interspecies romance_!" Dark-green shouted in a demeanor Ruby assumed was angry. He raised a device that bore the likeness of a circular saw, revved it up, and began lowering the spinning blade toward Ruby's face. " _Beginning dissection_." he declared.

"Huh? Gah! _Wait_! Nooohahaho!" Ruby squealed in panic, struggling wildly, " _I'll be your pet_! _I'll catch some Grimm, train them, and start a circus for you_! _I'll do anything_! _Stoooooooop_!"

Dark-orange grabbed dark-green's arm, appendage, or whatever it was called, and stopped him. " _Hold on_. _Matter of the subject's weapon remains unresolved_. _Blade far exceeds anything humans and even we are capable of_. _Request time to question subject_." he said.

" _Grant it_! _Grant it_!" Ruby beckoned.

" _Sympathy for insects disgusts me_." said dark-green.

" _Enjoy studying them_." orange retorted. One of his appendages interacted with a panel on the table Ruby was stuck to, probably pressing buttons, as the other Elder Things turned and left. The table started to move on its own, following orange to wherever they were going next.

Ruby made a scowl at dark-green as she passed by him. " _I am going to call you_ Squi-"

" _Remain silent until spoken to_." orange told her.

" _Okay Patrick_."

" _Displeased with that name_."

XXX

As was expected of knowledge that came from Miriam, Ruby felt that she didn't know anything about the Elder Things, yet always recognized something when she saw it, like it had been at back of her mind. It was comparable to being connected to a network that she could explore if she ever wanted to. She couldn't fight, so she had to talk her way out of this, but even without a language barrier she still had a hard time understanding the Elder Things. She closed her eyes to concentrate and let her mind drift.

The Elder Things had come from across the stars and landed on this planet before there was anything more than single-cell organisms. Had they come on purpose to start a new colony? Was it an accident that they made the most of? Whichever it was, they started a massive civilization that thrived for countless ages. That all came to an end when Cthulhu and his kin poured forth like a tidal wave, ravaging the whole world without effort. Were they neighbors deciding that the world wasn't big enough for the two of them? Had Cthulhu come much later and begin his onslaught upon arrival? Once again, whichever it was, the Elder Things came to a decline and were only able to survive by staying out of the Great Old One's eye. Their society further declined when their nightmarish bio-engineered slave race known as Shoggoths gained intelligence and rebelled against their masters. The Elder Things had degraded so much that they no longer had the means to deal with the freezing temperatures of the Ice Age that came soon after. Though they had once been capable of interstellar travel across deep space, such knowledge was lost and what remained of them had been trapped here ever since. Their culture was long past its prime. Their history on Earth dwarfed humanity's like a whale to an ant, and yet it only scratched the surface of their species as a whole throughout the cosmos.

It was a sad story, Ruby thought. The Elder Things were like the human race as Miriam was to her, a precursor that they could see their future in, and it wasn't one to be excited for. There was no place for humanity, just like there was no place for the Elder Things. " _You guys have had it rough_." Ruby said as the table she was restrained to moved into a containment cell in this place's wall, " _Is it accurate to refer to you as 'guys'_? _You don't have genders_." Some kind of energy field as transparent as a glass window appeared and essentially locked her in. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the cell were made of the same metal that defined the table she was brought in on. To her fascination, the table then liquified and seamlessly combined into the floor like water poured into a lake. "That was neat." she said in English as she sat upright on the floor.

" _You will cooperate~_ " orange said from behind the energy window.

" _If that was a question, the answer is yes_." Ruby said as she stood up and faced the Elder Thing. She cringed at the sight, feeling that it would take quite some time to get used to it. Even from one of the nicer Elder Things, the way those eyes squirmed and blinked while the appendages wiped around was just so disturbing. Ruby could think of worse company though.

" _Blade of the tool you had does not identify as matter or energy_. _Cannot be explained by any science_." orange said.

" _Yeah, it's almost like it interacts with space and time differently_." Ruby said.

" _Explain acquisition_."

" _I just got it, actually_. _It was right before I_ -" Ruby paused to remember falling into the ocean, " _Wait a second_. _Did you and your buddies dive to the bottom of the sea to retrieve it_?"

Orange hesitated before piping, " _Unclear~_ "

" _Unclear_? _What is that supposed to mean_?" Ruby said in confusion.

" _Tool was taken off your back while in carrying form_."

"Hmph. How about that…" Ruby muttered as took a pondering gesture. Did Crescent Rose develop a mind of its own and jump onto her back or something? Given what she saw of that scary-pharaoh-thing, even something as silly as that was a possibility. "Umm, _can I have something to sit on please_?" she asked orange. Almost immediately, liquid metal rose out of the floor beside her and took the form of an armchair. Upon taking a seat, she found that it was surprisingly comfortable and wasn't cold to the touch like bare metal should have been. It felt more like silk and it even deflated a little like a pillow. " _Thanks_. I can't wait to sleep in a bed made of this stuff." she lauded.

" _Stay focused_! _Tell what you know of impossible material_."

" _I don't know, okay_? _It was given to me by this Egyptian demon thing that I talked to for only a few minutes_." Ruby said. Already she began to question the act of telling the Elder Thing that she didn't have the information he was keeping her alive for. " _I could describe him if you want_!" she added.

" _Unnecessary_. _Already clear which deity you speak of_."

" _What_?! _It is_?!"

" _Will listen to finer details later_. _For now, appropriate experiments on blade have been made clear_." the dark-orange Elder Thing said as he turned and creeped away, " _Dissection begins in one solar cycle_."

" _Solar cycle_? _Does that mean a day_?!"

" _Do not fear_. _You can survive being cut open while conscious_."

Ruby gulped as she was left alone. The Elder Things may have been civilized but anything that wasn't them was either a threat or beneath them. It really said a lot that the height of their benevolence was one that saw her as an animal to be studied. "I take it back. These guys are 'all bad'." she said.

XXX

To be continued…


	16. Chapter 16: Mad Mountain

Ruby sat in her chrome chair playing 'thumb war' with herself to kill boredom. Where was she anyways? Was this place on the far north side of the landmass Atlas was on? Maybe it was on an undiscovered island even further up? From how foggy her mind was between getting picked up out of the ocean to waking up here, it could just as likely be the south pole instead. Whatever the case, it was pretty cold here. This place might also be underground with this stone-looking laboratory being the only thing she'd seen so far. "I wonder if they have their own version of TV or video games." Ruby muttered to herself, "Aww, who am I kidding? They're a race of scientists. They're throwing a party, and dissecting me like I were a frog is the entertainment."

"You, Ruby Rose, cannot brave this world's perils if it is curiosity that drives you." said a new voice.

"What? You again?!" Ruby gasped as she sprang off her chair and retreated to a corner of the cell. The pharaoh, a black hole shaped like a twisted imitation of a man, was standing in the cell with her, holding Crescent Rose in it scythe form like a walking stick. The cold air became nauseatingly ghastly and lifeless, the furthest removal of any light or warmth. "I thought it was over!" Ruby cried.

"No… it is just beginning." the pharaoh said… then Ruby was holding Crescent Rose with the pharaoh no longer there. Ruby spun her head left and right, unable to see him but still able to feel his presence.

"Is a god seriously messing with my head just for the fun of it?!" Ruby squeaked. She looked down upon Crescent Rose, and decided that she may as well go along with what the pharaoh seemed to want her to do. She sliced through the cell's force field, which discharged like lightning and flashed like a light bulb going out before vanishing. The swing had left an eerie black trail that quickly faded. This new blade was uncannily dangerous, certainly useful, and she feared it, though that last part might have been the pharaoh's whole idea. An alarm sounded off in response to her prison break and she started running. She made a b-line for the spot she had been operated on and grabbed Myrtenaster off a table without slowing down. Using her own skills to wield a scythe in her left hand, Miriam's skills to wield a rapier in her right hand, and having more than enough strength to use each with one arm, she duel-wielded the weapons as she sprinted through the lab searching for an exit. She ducked and slid under a fiery yellow beam that suddenly appeared in her face. She looked to see where it came from and noticed an Elder Thing aiming a stone-like lance at her just as another shot was fired from its tip. A disintegration ray weapon? About a dozen more Elder Things opened fire from all directions with this same weapon, almost resembling a rave party.

" _Terminate subject_!" the dark-green Elder Thing from before said as he fired another shot with his lance, " _Prefer not to leave it intact_!" he added with sadistic excitement.

Ruby flipped and danced through the array of beams with a dumbstruck look on her face. The beams were instantaneous, so she had to guess where they were aimed at and evade before they fired. "I gotta get me one of those!" she yelled. At last she came across a force field blocking off a hallway that ramped upward without stairs. It was really long, but light could be seen at the end. The outside? She disabled the force field the way she had the one for her cell and made a break for it.

XXX

Ruby came out of the building onto a terrace and was met by an overwhelming sight of rectangular stone mountains that were not mountains. Snow was gently falling from the gray sky above her so this wasn't underground, but towering all around her, higher and more vast than any man-made structure or even natural mountain range could ever hope to be, were things she could only assume were buildings. They were mostly conical, pyramidal, or terraced, though there were many perfect cylinders, perfect cubes, clusters of cubes, and other rectangular forms. Hundreds of Beacon Academy's could probably be stuffed into each individual one, some thousands, though there were smaller structures here and there. This incalculably gigantic place didn't twist reality like R'lyeh had, but it still had an 'otherness' to it. More notably, it was colossal! With a more extensive look at the buildings, it was clear that they had seen better days. The structures and ramparts looked monstrously weathered, but with their sheer enormity, it was no surprise that they could last even millions of years under the harsh arctic winds. The Elder things and this city would have scared Ruby half to death were it not for her previous experience with R'lyeh, not to mention it was hard to be afraid of a society she felt so much empathy for. As any mental peace and balance had long since left her, "Whoa! This place is cool!" was her reaction. Her voice echoed out. She could half imagine what this place might have looked like back in its prime when it was better maintained. She looked to her right and saw a few feet away two miniature Elder Things, less than half the size of the others she had seen. Children? " _Hello there, friends_!" Ruby piped with a friendly wave. The two kids looked at each other then just stared at her for a while. Were they scared? Confused?

" _Hello_." one of them finally said.

A dozen more Elder Things armed with those disintegration lances creeped out from the lab's entrance behind Ruby. " _Destroy it_!" one of them said.

"Listen to your parents and eat your veggies!" Ruby yelled as she ran down the ramp in front of her toward a star-shaped open space, evidently a public square. Other Elder Things turned to look as she ran by, probably in surprise and confusion as they didn't lift an appendage to stop her. She no longer had her semblance of speed, but her new anatomy allowed her to run around forty to fifty miles per hour and never get tired. She left the Elder Things in the dust, though when she looked back, it looked like they weren't even going to try to pursue her. All for the better. She was planning to avoid hurting them as she didn't want them to hold a grudge. The ground beneath her exploded and sent her tumbling over the snow. She looked up and spotted a bullhead-sized vessel in the shape of a three-sided pyramid, perhaps not unlike the one she was brought here on. It had a lot of windows… no, force fields, like a flying glass ship with a stone-like floor and Triquetra outlines. Come to think of it, the craft looked really worn down, like it was an antique that still happened to work. The Elder Things had probably lost the capability to repair or make more of it. That huge red laser that fired from the bottom wasn't to be taken lightly though. At the back of her mind, Ruby knew that as long as she was cut off from the Ascended, she would really die if her body got completely destroyed. She still preferred that to taking this collar off though.

The maze of squared, curved, and angled blocks roared with the crashing sounds of the craft's weapon pounding the stone environment as it barely missed its fleeing target. The pathways that ran throughout the city were wide enough to fit twenty semi-trucks side-to-side. This and any intersecting lane stretched off for boundless miles with no sign of thinning. Aside from that public square a while back, this place looked severely unpopulated, probably constructed during its empire's heyday.

"Being chased by a flying saucer that shoots lasers from above?" Ruby chuckled, "Man, have I got a story for…" Her voice trailed off when she thought of Blake and Velvet. Of her friends that were still alive, she would probably never see them again. "Hehehahahahaha!" she laughed, feeling horrible. Perhaps her recent spike in humor was just a side effect of going crazy. Nothing felt real anymore. She headed into one of the buildings in an attempt to lose the craft, going through a passageway that was wide but very short. Amazingly, the craft followed her in anyways, floating less than an inch off the ground and below the ceiling as it pursued. Ruby turned through hallways and went up staircases but the craft had no trouble keeping up. "They don't make em' like that anymore, do they?" Ruby said with astonishment. Finally they came out the other side of the building and continued the chase. This would never end if she just kept running. She turned around to face the craft, sliding backwards before coming to a stop. She leapt at the craft like a super-sized flea, seeing a huge disintegration beam coming at her. "Aww, I didn't think this through!" she said with an unstable laugh. She closed her eyes and held her scythe forward in desperation. When she didn't get vaporized, she opened her eyes to see that the blade was sucking the beam in like a black hole. She flew right under the vessel, unable to find its 'engines', so she cut through the spot that the beams came from to disarm it. Ruby landed, looked back, and saw the vessel land onto the pathway below with its crew alive as electricity buzzed through it. More importantly, it had stopped firing at her. " _Oops_! _I hope you can fix that_!" she laughed maniacally, not in the Elder Thing's language, but in her monstrous voice.

Each of the three triangles that made the craft opened up like the cockpits of jets and an Elder Thing came out, pointing another one of those lances at Ruby. A second Elder Thing creeped out and grabbed the first one's lance to stop him. " _Do no provoke_." the second Elder Thing said, " _Near sector too dangerous to raise noise-level in_. _They will devourer her if she continues on anyways_."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "They?" she mumbled. What was that Elder Thing talking about? Deciding that she couldn't stay here anyways, she turned and ran off.

XXX

Ruby continued running through the city, moving at full speed but feeling like nothing more than a fast ant in a shopping mall. The builders of this place certainly didn't rely on walking to get around. She wasn't seeing any more of them, or any sign of recent activity for that matter. Considering the thick layers of ice covering the rooftops, the stalactites the size of buses, and the skyscraper-sized statues that had been ruined to the point that they couldn't be recognized, this part of the city looked like it had been deserted for centuries. The main thing that was bothering her however, was the way she had acted earlier. If she was disconnected from the Ascended, how was she still having psychotic episodes? "I guess it was just me all along." she said. She couldn't get a sense of direction, so she decided that finding a high vantage point to look around from would be her best option.

What seemed like the largest building in this city block was a seething tower that looming high above the troubled ice vapors and past the clouds. This one gave off the vibe that it was once very important. The vast night-black masonry hideously perverted the geometrical laws and possessed a wholly novel and obscure quality of menacing symbolism, not unlike the structures in the inner circle of R'lyeh. Maybe it was another grand library?

"Alright. I nominate you." Ruby said, pointing at the huge tower that she couldn't see the top of. She began to 'parkour' her way up in earnest, using Crescent Rose and Myrtenaster like climbing axes to a mountain and her Ascended physical abilities for huge leaps. After for what felt like an eternity, she stopped when she could finally see over the other buildings, though she still couldn't see the top of this one. She made a brief glance down below, and could no longer see the road she had been traveling on. It just seemed like a bottomless gray pit. "Wow! The vomit Jaune would spill if he were up here!" Ruby yelled dizzily, almost unable to hear herself amidst the strong winds. She gazed over the innumerable honeycomb arrangements of the city and found that it was not of infinite width. There was a frozen tundra outside this likely-circular city. She had to wonder though, if this was indeed far to the north, how it had remained hidden from Atlas for so long, even with the harsh cold? In all likelihood, the Elder Things probably killed any humans that found anything and let it get blamed on the Grimm. Ruby headed back down the tower, unsurprisingly finding it faster and easier than climbing up, and landed back onto the snow covered road, noticing a subtle difference from before. The snow had been pushed down in a crooked path as if a boulder the size of a house had rolled or slid over it. She had a bad feeling that something far worse than the Elder Things was nearby. She continued on in the general direction of the frozen tundra she saw, now slowly and more carefully.

A long, deep, loud, slimy growl suddenly echoed throughout the labyrinth, sounding like it was from one creature with a thousand mouths. Ruby trembled in her boots, then picked up the pace with her head low as if it somehow made her harder to spot. She took a turn around a corner and stopped before a horrible sight. Dozens of Elder Things were lying there, dead, frozen, and half-buried in the snow. The blast marks on the buildings around here suggested that this had been the site of a battle, though it wasn't recent. What had they been fighting?

"Right, 'near sector too dangerous to raise noise-level in'." Ruby quoted, "Gotta be quiet." The snow made that familiar crunching noise akin to leather rubbing together as she approached one of the dead Elder Things. Wrapped in its appendages was one of those disintegration lances. "Hmm, neat…" She put Crescent Rose and Myrtenaster away and knelt down to take it, pulling harder when it wouldn't budge. She stumbled backwards when the Elder Thing's appendages snapped off like ice. She inspected the lance, brushing off the ends of the Elder Thing's appendages still stuck to it. Unfortunately it looked broken, but she decided to hold onto it anyways. Just as she was putting the surprisingly light lance through the back side of her belt, she heard another deep, slimy growl echo around. She did _not_ want to meet whatever took out these Elder Things. She hurried on, throwing subtly to the wind and hoping to just get out of here faster than trouble could find her. In her recklessness, she slipped over the snow and ice and fell onto her back. "Ooph! Aww…" she groaned. She got back up, smacked the snow off her clothes, then froze with her eyes wide when the left wall twenty feet away roared into her ear. She slowly turned her head to see a dark-blue gel-like 'wall' with thousands of eyes of different sizes, some blinking, but all staring at her. "That's not a wall…" Ruby gulped. It was a creature taking up the whole entrance of another pathway. It spilled forth as if released from a floodgate as Ruby turned and fled at full speed. She looked back over her shoulder to see that the creature was easily keeping up with her. The sight was a shapeless dark-blue avalanche or tidal wave of eyes, mouths, and pseudopodia that were constantly forming and dispersing. A Shoggoth? That was the most likely thing it could be. Were they supposed to look like that? Was this a failed experiment? Had it mutated? Whatever it was, if the Elder Things had created _that_ , they were indeed 'all bad'!

( _I highly recommend you do a Google-image-search of a 'Shoggoth'_. _Trust me, you wont be disappointed_!)

" _Tekeli-li_! _Tekeli-li_!" one of the mouths of the Shoggoth screamed loudly. Was it just gibberish or did it mean something?

"Leave me alone! I just want to get out of here!" Ruby cried. She brought out Crescent Rose, leapt to one of the nearby buildings, and climbed fifty feet up the same way she did with that large tower earlier. She stopped and stuck her tongue out at the Shoggoth below, blowing a raspberry at it, but it stretched and rose up from the ground all the way up to where she was standing. It tried to smash itself onto where she was, but she cartwheeled out of the way and continued up the structure. The entirety of the Shoggoth slithered up the side of the building after her until they reached the top. This was definitely not one of the larger buildings. "It's never that easy…" Ruby said as she watched the Shoggoth rapidly close in on her. She was apparently at the edge of the city, as the other side of the building was a massive drop into the blank white frozen tundra outside the city. She brought her scythe at the ready, but something at the back of her mind told her that she shouldn't fight this thing. The Shoggoths had preyed upon the Ascended in the past. The one before her now might even have been bred specifically for that purpose before the Elder Things lost control of it. Appendages covered in talons and barbs grew and lunged out from the Shoggoth just as she jumped.

XXX

To be continued…


	17. Chapter 17: Fever

**Has anyone guessed as to where I'm getting the poem-like bits that aren't from the RWBY soundtrack?**

* * *

Ruby awkwardly strode through the knee-deep snow, taking long wide steps while her arms were spread out to keep balance. A raging blizzard had kicked up and she couldn't see more than ten feet in front of her. There was only the white of the snow beneath her, the gray of the storm around her, and the trail she left in her wake. The terrain was far from even, twisting up and down with occasional sharp black rock formations. A car would get torn apart if it drove through here. Small icicles had formed from her nostrils which she smeared off with her sleeve. It was strange that the cold didn't bother her in the slightest. She could still feel the cold, it just wasn't… cold, though it did make her joints stiff. Her red cape flapped around behind her as she moved forward, raising a hand up to shield her face from the icy winds that rushed at her. She had put several miles between herself and the Elder Thing's ruined city. She didn't want to be anywhere near a Shoggoth, but a part of her strangely wanted to stay with the Elder Things. She had left her friends so that she couldn't hurt them, but she hated being out here all by herself. The Elder Things might have wanted to dissect her, but at least she could enjoy their company without really caring if she turned on them.

"You're not alone. You have us." Miriam said, standing there as Ruby came to a stop in front of her. She reached out and touched the collar on Ruby's neck. "Just remove this." she asked her in a sweet tone.

" _Never_." Ruby growled and pushed on.

"Have you wondered why you still sometimes 'act up' in spite of that thing on your neck?" Miriam asked as she followed after Ruby, "It's because it comes from you. Just you. It's not some external creature trying to take over. You're holding back what you really are."

Ruby gritted her teeth and refused to acknowledge the hallucination any further. Even now Ruby could feel the subtle knocking of Cthulhu's influence on her mind, but the Elder Things had given her the gift of a wall between her at it, which they had meant to be a prison. Something was pounding very hard on that wall, growing more and more restless the longer it couldn't find her. Even after all that had happened, she still knew so little. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown. Miriam had tried to force the gift of knowledge onto Ruby, allowing her to know all that a human could know, but she refused it, rejecting it for what it would do to her.

The raging winds were drowned out by a deep, thunderous roar that echoed around the hills and throughout the wasteland for miles. Ruby froze then looked around frantically for whatever made it. She caught a glimpse of a huge dark shape moving around through the gusts of snow behind her. A chill that actually did feel cold ran down her spine. A building-sized bubbly mass of flesh, eyes, and teeth became visible and Ruby broke into a run. The Shoggoth roared a second time then rampaged forward like an avalanche. It nearly caught up to Ruby when she suddenly slipped and tumbled down a steep hill before coming to a cliffside and falling down a one-hundred foot drop into another open plain. She groaned as she climbed out of the snow, wishing that it had cushioned her fall better. More sharp black rock formations surrounded her… wait, this wasn't rock. She was in a sea of molten glass covered under a thick layer of snow. Had the Elder Things melted this entire landscape during a war millions of years ago? A portion of the Shoggoth leaned over the cliffside high above, howling before spilling down and landing in Ruby's way. Now cornered against the cliff face, Ruby brought out Crescent Rose and Myrtenaster then banged them together. "Come on!" she shouted, bracing herself for a fight. What she thought she knew of the Shoggoths… fell utterly short… of what was before her.

Appendages with mouths at their ends lunged out from the Shoggoth, but Ruby sliced them apart with Crescent Rose. The deep snow made it impossible to evade as a huge tentacle then slammed onto her like a tree tipping over. She lost her scythe in the snow and was dragged toward the Shoggoth by hundreds of smaller tentacles before getting absorbed into it. She was squeezed through the monster's insides and then thrown into an open chamber filled with gastric acid, apparently its stomach. With her breath held and Myrtenaster still in hand, she repeatedly stabbed at the walls of the creature's stomach. In retaliation, more tentacles with teeth sprang out from the stomach walls in an effort to break her down faster. Finally she created a rupture large enough to tear open and force her way through. She burst out the 'back' of the Shoggoth and landed face-first onto the snow again. She quickly sprang up, finding an appendage with the likeness of a blade at the end already coming near her face. She tried to avoid it, but her head was chopped clear off her shoulders and flung deep into the snow. Her headless body fell over and felt around for her head, finding it quickly as she was still linked to detached body parts. She jammed her head back on and noticed when she touched her neck that the collar was missing.

"Oh no!" Ruby cried. Whispers that quickly grew into screaming sounded off in her mind. She had barely noticed when the link had been cut, but when it came flooding back, it completely overwhelmed her. She pulled on her hair with her left hand and stabbed herself through the face with Myrtenaster over and over, hoping that it would numb this horrible pleasure. She trembled and started to orgasm. " _You're going to wish you hadn't done that_!" she squealed. Dozens of more tentacle-blades whipped at her, but she evaded some while blocking and slicing the rest with Myrtenaster. Without any concentration spent on suppressing the demon inside, she found it much easier to track and deal with the Shoggoth's attacks. She leapt over and under its flailing appendages toward the spot she dropped Crescent Rose, kicked it up with her foot, and caught it. " _You need to learn that I'm a lot scarier than you are_!" she growled. She sprang at the Shoggoth, hacking and stabbing away at it with more speed and power than what she wielded against Miriam, and without any idea if a Shoggoth could actually be killed this way.

 _Beauty – it's humanity's greatest sin._

 _Beauty – hiding the beast that lies within._

 _For all our righteous crimes we compensate,_

 _But as for me it's far too late!_

 _I can't deny the voices inside my brain,_

 _It's not a dream, we're one and the same!_

 _You should know that a soul can't be cut,_

 _No matter what blade you wield!_

 _If you follow your own path to justice,_

 _The brutal truth will be revealed!_

 _The sound's getting louder,_

 _And louder and louder,_

 _And louder and_ _ **louder**_ _!_

XXX

Ruby was lying in the snow, freezing, and wearing her patient gown. She was in the institution's walled-off garden area. The snow came down gently. There was no wind. She was alone. "Hmph…" She frowned, remained motionless, and continued to stare up at the dark gray sky without a care in the world.

"Doc! I found her! She's out here!" somebody yelled.

"What? How'd she sneak by the other staff members?!" said somebody else.

"Oh, that poor thing!" came Miriam's voice, "Bring her inside, immediately! She must be frozen half to death!"

Ruby felt someone pick her up and carry her off. Her thoughts were muddled as if she was half asleep. Before she knew it, she was sitting on a comfy armchair in the recreation room, covered from her knees to her head in blankets that only exposed her face. Her bare feet were in a plastic bucket of steaming hot water on the floor. There were a few other people around, some patients, some staff members, though the place had a relaxing, mellow feel as opposed to the more active atmosphere from the last time she could recall being here. The ceiling lights above had a golden glow to them, making a stark contrast to the snow covered garden and evening sky seen outside through the window. "The cold feels cold." Ruby said in a shaky voice, shivering uncontrollably. She was aware of how crazy that must have sounded. "At least here, everything still makes sense." she added. Her voice was also still quite hoarse. Did whatever happen here correlate with what happened in the other world? Nurse Miriam came over and set down a spoon and a large mug of hot chocolate onto the table in front of her.

"It's very hot, so don't go guzzling it down." the nurse said to her patient, then turned and walked away.

"Thanks." Ruby croaked. She slowly reached out from the blankets and took the spoon, dipping it into the mug and taking a small sip. The hot chocolate tasted absolutely delicious. She blushed and made a warm smile. She didn't care which world was real anymore. She would try to live the best she could in both. That didn't mean she would cooperate during her therapy sessions though.

"Ah, before I forget again." the nurse said as she came back, holding a small cup of hot tea for herself in her right hand. With her left, she held a clinical thermometer to Ruby's face. "Say 'ahh'." she ordered. Ruby silently opened her mouth then bit down on the thermometer. "Doctor Hill should come by any minute now. Don't go sneaking off on us again." Miriam said, wagging her finger.

"I wont."

"Glad to hear it." Miriam said with a nod, "Be good, huntress." She walked off again.

"Good huntress…" Ruby repeated. It was only five minutes later when an old man in a white coat showed up. She scoffed at him and looked away.

"Now now Ruby, there's no need for that kind of attitude." Doctor Hill said.

"Just ask your questions, Patrick." Ruby barked.

"There's no need to be in such a hurry either, and please, I'd prefer if you used my surname." Doctor Hill said, taking a seat and preparing to write something down on his clipboard, "I'd like to know why you were-"

"Why was I out in the snow?" Ruby interjected, "I have no idea, _doc_."

"I don't think I can believe that, Ruby. You didn't sneak out by accident."

"Look, I don't remember, okay?" Ruby said, shaking her head, "It's all a blur to me."

Doctor hill looked down at his clipboard and wrote something while mouthing the words 'refuses to cooperate'. "Well for your own good, it better not happen again. If the sniffles is all you get from this, you should consider yourself lucky." he said.

"Okay, fine. Are we done here?" Ruby asked scornfully.

"You talk like you have somewhere to be." Doctor Hill said. Ruby gave no reply. "Ruby, I'm growing very concerned that you're making up new rules as you go along." Hill added.

"Makes it harder to psychoanalyze me, doesn't it?"

Doctor Hill gave a defeated sigh. "Well, if you refuse to work with me, there's nothing I can do. However, you're going to be kept on watch any time you're out of your room from tomorrow until the end of next week." he said.

Ruby hated her therapy sessions. She didn't want to give Doctor Hill the satisfaction of an answer, but she was starting to feel bad about her rudeness. "I understand…" she mumbled. The doctor nodded and left her alone. It was hours later when she finally took off the blankets, put her slippers back on, and stood up. She felt as good as new. For the first time she noticed that her hair had grown even longer, more or less matching Blake's in length. How long has she been here now? She looked through the window at the pitch black outdoors, able to see herself still fighting the Shoggoth in the snow. She turned around to find that she had been approached by another patient, the boy her age that often flirted with her.

"You didn't tell the doc anything, did you?" the young man asked.

"I told him I couldn't remember." Ruby said.

"Nice." the young man said with an approving nod, "Maybe we could take it up a notch next time? Maybe have your first?"

"I'm not doing that again." Ruby said as she brought her hand down to her own waist, "I'd rather keep it. I can find some other way to relax."

"As if you had a better way to pass the time?" the young man said, "I promise you wont get thrown out the window into the snow again."

"Attention everyone! It's lights out!" Miriam announced in a chipper tone from the other side of the room. Ruby, like the other patients, was escorted back to her assigned room.

XXX

A golden sun rose the next morning, though the snow didn't seem to melt. After Ruby finished breakfast, she chose to stay in her room over being followed everywhere by a security guard. Miriam stopped by later on, probably on Doctor Hill's suggestion as she was the only staff member Ruby responded to, not to mention it wasn't mentally healthy to be alone for the whole day. Ruby sat at the edge of her bed with Miriam sitting on her knees behind her, combing her hair.

"You're certain you don't want a haircut? I thought you liked your hair short." Miriam said.

"I need it long now." Ruby croaked. She couldn't remember the last time her hair had been combed. Her hair was so long and messy now that each stroke of the brush actually hurt a little. A while passed before she finally spoke up with, "Miri? Are you married?"

"Excuse me?" the nurse giggled, "I'm still a bit young for that."

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"I don't know who else to ask about this kind of thing."

"Oh…" Miriam gave an impressed murmur then went back to combing Ruby's hair. "Thinking about boys, eh?" she asked.

"More like 'trying to keep my mind occupied'." Ruby said with a shrug, "I used to think that kind of stuff was gross, but there's just nothing else to think about in this place. It makes you beg for someone to do!"

"Someone?"

"Erm… something." Ruby quickly corrected herself, feeling embarrassed.

"You know the rules, girlfriend." Miriam said playfully, "There's a penalty for trying to 'get with' other patients. For that matter, there's a harsher punishment for staff members 'getting with' patients."

"Right, yeah…"

"Was there a boy you fancied before… well…" Miriam shrugged, "you know."

"Umm, not really. No."

"Was there at least a boy that was nice to you? A 'guy friend'?"

"Hmm. I guess there was Jaune."

"He's the cutie that came with your old team on their first visit, right? Blonde hair and blue eyes?"

Ruby rolled her eyes and smirked. "I sorta remember you trying to flirt with him." she said.

"Well he isn't a patient." Miriam said with a cringe.

"Pfft~ you're six or seven years older than him."

"I like younger guys." The nurse and her patient laughed together, then carried on with combing the latter's hair until she was told to "check the mirror". Ruby got up and went over to the small mirror hung up on the wall. With her long hair almost perfectly straight, she felt she could actually pass for 'pretty' now. "If you could," Miriam asked, "would you go out with him?"

"Even if he wasn't with Pyrrha, it still wouldn't be worth thinking about." Ruby said, still looking at herself with a jaunty expression, "Don't forget, I'm crazy."

"Girl, we're all crazy to some extent. It's the way people are built."

"Wh… what do you mean?" Ruby said as she turned to look at the nurse, now with an interested look.

Miriam shrugged, still sitting on the bed. "Well, we have the capacity to give meaning to things. It's what separates both humans and faunus from animals. A monkey looks up and sees a blue sky. You and I would see a beautiful day. It's what makes us special. Being crazy is just when you've taken it a little far." she explained.

"I don't think it's that simple." Ruby said. She bent her head down and itched her neck. She lowered her hand after having placed the collar back on and found herself staring down at a throbbing fragment of the Shoggoth in the snow. More pieces of it could be seen all over this part of the icy wasteland, even with the blizzard still making it hard to see. Each piece of the creature jerked like they were still alive, though they were too small to do much else. Would the Shoggoth eventually die if she left it alone like this? Would it eventually pull itself back together? She wasn't staying here to find out. As the wind blew, she took notice that her hair had somehow changed to be long, exactly as it was when she was in the mental hospital. Being able to alter her appearance wasn't something new to her, but it had never happened subconsciously, until now anyways. She closed her eyes to concentrate and her hair slowly shrunk back to its normal length. It was hard enough to see without long hair blowing in her face. She sighed and continued on, no longer caring if all this was real or not. Both people and animals could be insane, but only one of the two could have delusions so elaborate. "Having a mind that can think elegantly… comes with the risk of it breaking in such fascinating ways…"

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **I pretty much just put them in to see if someone would notice.**


	18. Chapter 18: Lab Critter

A lowly Atlas soldier stepped out of the main building and came to the foot of the snow, outside but still under a roof. The strong winds had finally died down, though the snow that fell was still thick. This was Atlas's north-most outpost; in the middle of nowhere, where it was always freezing and where snow never stopped falling. It wasn't all bad though. The outpost's power generator was state-of-the-art, keeping the network interconnected buildings well-heated, not to mention very little of the heat escaped as the buildings were all partially or completely underground. They had quite a few people here and they were very well-armed, able to easily deal with what little Grimm they encountered up here. The soldier stared even further north past the frozen hills and into the icy beyond, a wasteland that probably stretched on forever. He was wearing the standard issue white-gray body armor that covered everything but the mouth and chin, and even though it doubled as an environmental suit, he was still pretty cold. He was about to turn around and head back inside when he suddenly noticed something… _someone_ slowly trekking through the thigh-deep snow directly toward him. As the person drew closer and became more visible, he could see that it was a girl dressed in black and red, probably very young judging by her small stature.

"Must have slipped something into my coffee." the soldier said to himself. It was hard to believe that someone wearing nothing more than a simple hoodie could survive in this kind of weather. The girl looked like a corpse that had been frozen in the snow for days, then got up, and started walking again like a zombie. She was definitely real though, and getting very close. The soldier took his rifle, which had been slung over his shoulder, and aimed it at the girl. "Halt! Identify yourself!" he yelled at the little girl, but she just kept coming closer, looking like she was about to collapse from exhaustion. She came right in front of him and stumbled forward, grabbing onto his waist the way someone stranded out at sea would react to land. The soldier dropped and forgot about his rifle, concerned for the strange girl's well-being. She seemed to be carrying a couple of weapons. "I didn't think for a moment that there was anything but a dead wasteland out there." the soldier said.

"You're not wrong." the girl muttered, "All that's out there is a trail of extinction."

XXX

Ruby didn't actually feel tired. She wasn't sure she could be tired anymore. Her mind however felt like it needed a long, _long_ break. She was taken inside and immediately brought to the place's small medical room, where she refused any treatment related to dealing with hypothermia. "I'm fine, really." she said.

"You don't look fine." said the combat medic that was examining her. He pulled the clinical thermometer out of Ruby's mouth and checked it. The temperature it read would have made more sense if it had been stuck into a refrigerator. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to run a few tests." the medic said.

"Do what you want." Ruby said with a shrug, "Just don't cut me open. I've had enough of that for the week, mister…" She squinted at the medic's name tag which read 'Frank DuFresne'. "Mister Defru… Defe… Frank."

"Don't worry." Frank said as he brought up a syringe, flicking the side of it twice, "I'm going to give you something that will make you numb, so you wont feel a thing."

"It won't work. I can't get drunk and drugs only last a few seconds." Ruby said as she went from sitting to lying down on her cushy hospital bed. Her eyes were closed and her tongue was sticking out like roadkill.

The medic started a series of mundane tests that quickly grew more and more elaborate with no sign of stopping. Ruby nonchalantly stripped down to her underclothes for a full-body x-ray, but caught Frank's wrist when he reached for the collar on her neck, threatening him to not dare touch it in a beastly voice. After getting her clothes back, further testing continued on for the whole day, but she didn't mind with how mentally tired she was. When Frank needed to stop and sleep for the night, Ruby was given a small room to rest in, which somehow reminded her of her padded room from the mental institution. She didn't sleep of course, but it was a welcome moment of quiet and relaxation. When it was technically daytime again, despite there being no sun, she returned to the medical room and the tests resumed in earnest. Frank seemed beyond fascinated with what his investigation was turning up. It was almost noon when the whole outpost shook then steadily subsided as if a massive ship had landed topside.

"That was a supply ship, right?" Ruby asked.

"It's nothing you should worry about." Frank said, "C'mon, we're taking a short recess from these tests."

"Okay." Ruby said. She was taken to the outpost's cafeteria area, a medium-sized room with rows of rectangular tables. Every table was lined on both sides with Atlas soldiers in the middle of enjoying their lunch break. Ruby, looking very out of place in her hoodie, took a seat and frowned at the food she was given. She took a cracker between her fingers and popped it into her mouth to humor herself, not surprised that it tasted like a dust bunny to her. Her body was not able to digest food anymore, and she would vomit it back out sooner or later. When Frank finished his lunch, he got up and walked off on his own. Considering all the obsessive testing, it seemed odd to Ruby that he would suddenly just ignore her. No one seemed to object when she decided to get up and follow after him. She stopped just outside of what she assumed was the outpost's command center, finding that Frank was speaking to a woman that looked like a high-ranking Atlas officer. It was a safe bet that the officer had been invited here specifically for Ruby, and that she just came in on the ship that landed earlier.

"It's like something straight out of science fiction!" Frank said as he flipped through documents and photos in the folder he held, "Much of her bones are missing, and the ones that aren't are all broken. She still has a set of lungs and her sexual organs, but there's nothing else. There's no heart, no kidneys, there isn't even a brain in her head."

"She still thinks and functions without a brain?" the officer said skeptically.

"It's like her whole body is a brain. The whole thing is sentient muscle." Frank said with a finger on a text document, "This will sound ridiculous, but her body seems to have been intelligently designed so that every last cell could survive and even think on its own should it ever be separated from the whole."

"Could she be, in any way, related to the creatures attacking Vale?" the officer asked.

"I was too afraid to ask." Frank responded.

Ruby knocked on the wall with her knuckle to get their attention. "You could ask me yourself if you want." she said.

The officer glared at her with a stern, unimpressed look. "So this is the subject you spoke of." she said bluntly, "How… underwhelming."

"I… huh, what?" Ruby uttered, now squinting with surprised look. She took a good, long look at the officer. The woman had pale skin, white hair, and medium-light blue eyes. She was tall and her hair was tied up in a bun at the back of her head, save for the bangs brushed to cover the right side of her face. It was the spitting image of Weiss if she were a bit older.

"I hope you have a good explanation for why you have my sister's weapon." Winter Schnee said harshly, eying the rapier fastened to Ruby's belt.

"Oh! Well, you see I'm… uh… I happen to be-" Ruby stuttered nervously.

"I know who you are, Ruby Rose." Winter said with spite, "Now, what have you done with my younger sister?" Her eyes darkened.

"It's… complicated." Ruby said. An explosion followed by rapid gunfire was suddenly heard and troops began running through the halls, barking orders at each other. There was a battle going on above. Was it what she thought it was? By all that was holy, she hoped not. She was no match for a Shoggoth, let alone more than one, if she didn't take her collar off and let herself go crazy. She didn't dare remove it while around people.

"We're under attack?" Frank said.

"Stay here. We'll go over your findings later." Winter calmly told the man. "And you," she said more unpleasantly to Ruby, "don't even think about leaving." She brought the tip of her dueling saber to Ruby's neck in the blink of an eye. "I mean it."

Ruby didn't even flinch. "I'm not leaving," she declared firmly with a dark expression, "and I'm going to help fight. Don't even think about stopping me."

Winter lifted an eyebrow, mildly surprised by Ruby's sudden rock-hard insistence. "Fine. I'll be watching you." Winter said.

XXX

It was, of course, still snowing outside. Ruby ran out the door to see that the Atlas soldiers had dug in with their rifles facing north, backed up by mounted guns and an Atlesian Paladin-290 battle-mech. The ship that Winter had come in on had apparently taken off and flying circles around the outpost. A massive stampede of Grimm covered the landscape as far left and right as the eye could see, and a few were set to sweep straight through the outpost. It looked like every last Grimm north of here was migrating south for some reason.

"Oh phew. It's just the Grimm." Ruby said, giving a thankful sigh of relief. Winter, whom had put on a white coat with fur trimmings and had not bothered to put the hood up, made a curious glance at her. She was probably thinking the little girl was crazy, and she'd be right.

The Atlas soldiers fired at the Grimm with everything they had. The wave of incoming Grimm slowed down as countless fell, but it didn't stop due to their sheer numbers. They drew closer and closer, and when an Ursa was about to strike at a soldier, Winter came out of nowhere to cut it down with her saber. There was an awful lot of Grimm but most were outright ignoring the outpost. Ruby felt pretty confident that the Atlas military would be able to handle this on their own, but it was a good chance to prove herself their ally. People didn't like what they couldn't explain, but a huntress fighting Grimm was something everyone was familiar with. The snowy terrain around Ruby was kicked up when she jumped forty feet into the air then landed deep in the middle of the charging Grimm. An enormous Death Stalker, perhaps the biggest she'd ever seen, flung its huge stinger at her. She stopped it with her bare hands then pulled on it, bringing it off the ground as she spun it around like a wrecking ball and whacked all the other Grimm around her with it. With actual effort, she then threw the Death Stalker into the air, crushing several more Grimm when it landed on them. She punched an Ursa that tried to maul her, sending the upper half of its body flying off into the distance. Finally she took Crescent Rose and brought it out in its scythe form. Oddly, the Grimm seemed startled by the sight of the green-black blade, backing away cautiously.

"Ah, you fellas don't like this, do you?" Ruby said, smiling like she was really enjoying herself, "Is it instinct, or do you actually know who gave it to me?!" She moved in a blur and attacked like she was wielding hundreds of Crescent Roses. Even more notable than her speed was that her new blade didn't cut the Grimm like it did with the Shoggoth, but made them evaporate instantly instead of minutes after death. Ruby continued to dance around the killing fields until her mind drifted, leaving only instinct and muscle memory. The Atlas soldiers noticeably stopped firing as the Grimm had thinned out to the point where they were no longer getting past Ruby. The troops stood up and watched with unease as the attack finally subsided and the little girl screamed like a banshee, perhaps as a war cry. She might not have been connected to the Ascended, but she was still one of them in her own right. She was breathing hard, not in exhaustion, but in excitement from how riled up the fight had made her. Killing Grimm like this made it so easy to just forget about her problems.

"Your attempt to bury yourself in battle will make you forget more than just your anguish." the dark pharaoh said. He was standing behind Ruby with his hands on her shoulders.

"It feels so good…" Ruby said, shivering and utterly mesmerized by the dark blade as she she leaned forward and licked it, "I have nothing left, not even a life."

"What one does for pay is of little significance." the pharaoh said softly, "What you are, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world's beauty, is everything!"

"Ye…" Ruby fell backwards against the pharaoh's chest and felt… relaxed, but then she thought of Velvet. "Huh?!" She stumbled away from him and turned around, but saw no one there. She looked at the dark blade and touched her collar. " _Two_ separate things are making me go crazy?" she said to herself, "The collar only keeps one in check." She put Crescent Rose away and headed back to the outpost, walking over the snow instead of pushing through it now that the Grimm had cleared it. The troops backed away from her guardedly, though they didn't raise their weapons. For a while everyone just stared and remained silent, until Ruby spoke up with "You guys okay?", which seemed to calm a few of them down. They all went about their business, some whispering to each other as they got back to work.

"I've never seen the Grimm that ticked before." one soldier said to another.

"Tell me about it." said the other soldier, "That was the first time I've seen more than two at once since I was stationed here!"

"I'm more concerned about the little girl," said a third soldier, "She shows up then this happens? Where did she come from anyways?"

"Did you see what she did out there? It goes far beyond any kind of semblance."

"The blade on her weapon is like nothing I've ever seen. Like forged midnight!"

Ruby looked over at the open entrance of the outpost and noticed Winter standing there, waving her to come over with an angry look on her face. Ruby obeyed and came back inside with her head lowered. As she walked through the halls with Winter behind her, the soldiers that had previously ignored her would now stop, stand aside, and stare as she went by. She returned to the medical room.

"I knew it. You _are_ one of them." Winter said, standing in the doorway with her saber in hand.

"I like to believe I'm still me." Ruby said.

"You 'like to'?" Winter repeated with repulsion.

"I like to…" Ruby whispered, feeling like she was losing grip on that belief. She sat down on the hospital bed as Winter remained in the doorway, perhaps to make sure she didn't try anything, though Winter apparently trusted her enough to keep her inside the base instead of outside surrounded by guns. That, or Winter trusted herself to put Ruby down if she needed to. "You don't know what 'they' can do." Ruby said, but she was given no response. Although she had intended to get the people here to trust her more, they had only become more cautious. It was normal for any person of any culture to not like what they couldn't explain. Maybe it was why she found Cthulhu to be so frightening? Not his size nor the way he looked, but the fact that he was so different from humanity and anything else she could use as reference. On the other hand, the Elder Things were not unlike humanity and the Grimm at least behaved predictably.

"Are you hurt, ma'am?" Frank asked Winter as he approached her.

"I'm fine." Winter said with her eyes still fixed on Ruby.

"So what happens now?" Ruby asked weakly.

Frank walk right up to Ruby. "The men are downright scared of you." he said to her, "Some are saying you're a freak of nature, others are calling you the pinnacle of what a huntress can become, a prodigy given your age." He frowned and shook his head. "But you're not human, nowhere near it. Whatever's behind those eyes of yours, I know it's not us."

"According to some experts I met, I'm still thirteen percent human." Ruby said.

"That doesn't sound like much considering how you still look." Winter said skeptically.

"More importantly, I was originally human!" Ruby said fervently, "And I don't ever want to let go of that." she added more quietly.

"Ma'am." said another soldier that approached Winter with a salute. "We seemed to have lost contact with Atlas."

"What are you talking about? Is the radio damaged?" Winter asked.

"There isn't a scratch on it, ma'am. I contacted the other northern outposts just to make sure and didn't have a problem. The city suddenly just went silent."

"Well, now we know what put the Grimm in such a frenzy." Ruby quickly cut in.

"You're telling me you can't hail a single person out of a whole city?" Winter asked the soldier, ignoring Ruby, "Vale was at least able to get a word out before it fell."

"Fell?" Ruby whispered with her eyes widening, "But they have a safe zone at Beacon."

Frank shook his head saying "Not anymor-"

"Remain silent, you freak!" Winter barked at Ruby, pointing her saber. In a fit of sudden rage, Ruby leaned forward and chomped onto Winter's saber with her bear teeth, biting half the blade off like it was a cookie and spitting it onto the floor. Winter, Frank, and the radio operator all leapt back with astonished looks.

" _I'm through with being polite_!" Ruby shouted in her other voice. She jumped off the bed and walked toward Winter with a piecing glare. " _You're going to tell me what happened to my sister, now_!" Winter held her broken saber forward as she reached into the handle and pulled out a main-gauche, a kind of parrying dagger, in her left hand. Frank on the other hand hastily spilled the beans.

"There was chatter about how the creatures attacking Vale were suddenly pulling out." Frank said quickly, "They were about to celebrate when they said something huge emerged from the ocean. A walking mountain, they called it. That was right before their Cross Continental Transmit tower went offline."

XXX

To be continued…


	19. Chapter 19: The Loneliest of All

Ruby had developed a bad taste for airships. The one Winter had rode in on was fairly small, sporting a crew of around only twenty men and was less than half the size of the one that belonged to Torchwick. For some reason Ruby kept expecting the pharaoh to jump out of every cabinet, closet, and door she came across and say 'boo', probably because she always felt like he was right next to her. Was the pharaoh planning to use her for something or could a god really be so petty as to do this for the fun of it? The airship was moving at full speed toward Atlas, its crew intent on finding out why the city had dropped off the radar. Ruby had suggested that they stay put, let her check it out on her own, and wait until she reported back, but they wouldn't have it. Ruby shouldn't have been surprised. What could she expect when the world they were apart of was under attack? Unlike her, they hadn't been shoehorned into another one.

At the ship's bridge, the crew was noticeably becoming more and more uneasy at Ruby's presence. She was standing at the back of the room, facing the wall, leaning forward like she was in a trance, and constantly bumping her bloody forehead against the metal wall while mumbling bizarre words. "Lloig… 'bthnk… n'ghft… orr'e… vulgtlagln… gnaiih…" she rambled. Although the collar seemed to suppress the 'signal' she gave off, there was clearly a limit to how much it could stop her from receiving. Whatever was calling out to her had grown to a thundering roar, reduced by the collar to a furious whisper that she still couldn't ignore. It wasn't a result of 'it' trying harder to find her, but that 'it' was becoming more active, more awake. Without this collar, Ruby would probably be a raving lunatic right now.

"Is it really a good idea to give her free rein of the ship?" a soldier at one of the consoles asked in a discreet whisper.

"We have nothing that can hold her." Winter said out loud from the helm, not bothering to look at the man, "It's better to let her do what she wants and not upset her further."

"With all due respect, ma'am, not so loud. Do you want her to hear us?" the soldier quickly whispered shrinkingly.

"She can hear us no matter how quiet we are, even if we were on the other side of the ship." Winter said with her attention still focused on flying the ship.

"You're kidding, right?"

"She's not. I could." Ruby said, suddenly standing right next to the wary soldier.

"Whoa!" the soldier cried, jumping away, "You know, sneaking up on people doesn't make you seem any less creepy."

Ruby ignored the man, not needing another reminder that she was becoming less 'Ruby Rose' by the minute. "Look Winter," she said dismally, "about Weiss…"

Winter's stoic expression gave way to a heavy sigh. "Let's take this to the other side of the ship." she said as she left the helm and let someone else take over. She turned around and began walking. "I doubt you meant anything to happen to her, but I must know, are you responsible in any way?" she asked.

"No." Ruby said, shaking her head as she walked beside Winter, "I didn't even see it happen. For all I know, she might still be out there."

Winter gave a hopeful glance, then returned to her business-like demeanor. "The creatures that attacked Vale, could it have been anything other than them?" she asked.

Ruby paused for a moment, then said, "It was someone that lost her way."

"And where are they now? This 'someone'?"

"I tore her apart." Ruby said with a hint of remorse.

"I see. I take it that's why you have my sister's weapon." Winter said as she hit a button that opened a sliding door. She and Ruby entered what looked like a small office or captain's quarters. The door closed behind them.

"Here." Ruby said as she held Myrtenaster forward by the end of the blade, holding the hilt to Winter, "I couldn't just leave this in the street where I found it."

Winter slowly accepted the rapier and inspected it, paying little mind that the revolver-like barrel was missing. "And you've held onto it ever since. I take it you got along well with her." she said.

"Teams are supposed to be like families, right?" Ruby said with a shrug, "If that's the case, all four of us were definitely sisters." She sat down on a swivel chair that was bolted to the floor. "Weiss didn't show it much, but she cared. She always tried to act all high and mighty, but she warmed up to others quickly. I think that haughtiness was just a front." She frowned and made a long exhale. "At first she seemed… lonely underneath." She thought about leaving Weiss behind in R'lyeh. Come to think of it, that was the last time she ever talked to her.

"So she opened up to you." Winter said, lowering the rapier but still holding it, "She rarely saw eye to eye with father. She wanted time away from him to find out more about the world and about herself." She fastened Myrtenaster to her belt with a sour expression on her face. "To think that this happened right after she made up with father."

"Oh." Ruby hadn't thought about how Weiss had her father's money again, and was able to afford that cruise. "Right…"

"I apologize for the manner in which we first met." Winter said as she took a seat at the metal desk covered in touch pads and buttons, "I was under the impression that you played a part in my sister's disappearance."

Ruby nodded. She was familiar with the concept of a protective older sister. "Weiss and I got off on the wrong foot too." she said. Staring at Winter reminded her of Weiss more than Miriam, whom had stolen Weiss's face, ever did. "Not to mention I had to dig to find her soft side as well. You truly are her sister."

"Of course, but right now I want you to tell me everything you can about my sister's fate. I want every detail." Winter said as she clasped her hands together.

"Ah, yes ma'am." Ruby said. She proceeded to tell Winter the whole story about the cruise, Blake's nightmares, and their eventual discovery and exploration of R'lyeh. She had gotten to the part about finding the giant door when an Atlesian soldier barged into the room. The man just pointed toward the front of the ship and stuttered deliriously.

"Spit it out! Make your report already." Winter said to the man.

"I think you should see it for yourself!" the soldier said.

Ruby quickly looked back and forth from the man to Winter with a worried look on her face. Had they caught up to the tidal wave of Grimm they encountered earlier? No, a sight that ordinary wouldn't provoke this reaction. It was more likely that the Ascended had appeared to harvest the population of Atlas before Cthulhu came to wipe it out. Ruby and Winter sprang off their chairs and hurried back to the bridge. They looked out the windows and saw the disturbing sight of destruction and ruin that seemed awfully recent. They hadn't reached the city yet, but they were close enough that there should have been signs of civilization. Instead there was a field of bonfires polluted with mounds of metal junk that were once ships and buildings. Black smoke clouds rose up from dozens of spots on the ground as the sky rained ash in place of snow.

"We just flew over these parts hours ago!" Winter said incredulously.

"No bomb that exists could flatten a town like this." said the ship's navigator.

"Drop me off and turn back." Ruby said to Winter, "Even from up here on this ship, it's not safe to go further."

"Who named you the expert?" asked one of the guys flying the ship.

"A pretty little nurse." Ruby said.

"Ruby, do you have any idea what could have caused this?" Winter asked.

Ruby took a long, careful look at the plains below them, then finally shook her head saying, "No."

Winter pondered as she stared out the window, perhaps considering her options. "We're not leaving until we know what happened. At the very least, we should look for survivors and ask them." she said. The ship moved slowly and lower to the ground as the crew kept an eye out for any signs of movement below. There were a few docile-looking Grimm here and there, but that was it.

"If there were any survivors, the Grimm have likely mopped them up by now." someone said.

"I don't know. The Grimm almost look sick." said somebody else. The Creatures of Grimm seemed to be scratching at their heads a lot, as if something was irritating them.

"I don't even see any dead bodies." Ruby said. It was the calling card of the Ascended, but the part about the area being totally leveled didn't really fit. They flowed amidst an environment like a river, not over it like a bulldozer. "So it probably isn't them…" Ruby whispered to herself. She nearly lost her balance when the ship suddenly began to tilt sideways. Winter walked over to the man at the helm, whom seemed to have dozed off, and smacked him on the head.

"Wake up!" Winter barked.

"Apologies ma'am! Just feeling a little woozy." the man said as he corrected the ship's flight path.

Ruby turned to look around at the crew. Everyone but her was starting to look as lightheaded as the Grimm, with Winter just being the best at hiding it. She casually walked over to Winter and stopped her from stumbling over with a subtle push from her hand. "Don't lie. You're as dizzy as he is." she whispered.

"I…" Winter stuttered as she wiped some sweat from her forehead, "For peace of mind, the crew shouldn't know." she whispered back.

"Don't worry. It'll pass in a minute or two."

"You've experienced this before?"

"Yes, but my head was rewired so that it doesn't bother me anymore, the headache-part anyways." Ruby said rigorously, "You and the others will have your brains fried like eggs if you go any further." Talking like this, she was amazed at how accustomed she had become to this new… no, _old_ world that had returned with the dark lord Cthulhu's awakening. She had set foot on and explored R'leyh, not knowing a thing about it, only… how long ago? A week? A month? Even having just talked about it, she didn't really know anymore. She felt like a whole lifetime had passed since then. Several lifetimes to be honest. She had two other minds in her head and she didn't know which memories were her's anymore. It left its scars, but she so felt so used to it now.

"Change of plans." Winter tiredly announced to the crew, "We're not heading toward Atlas. We'll sweep this area for survivors then return to the northern outpost." The crew muttered to each other for a bit until one of then noisily vomited onto the floor, causing others to stare, back away, and groan in repulsion. Finally the headache epidemic seemed to subside and the crew slowly went back to searching for anyone ground-side like they were before, save for avoiding the vomit puddle under one of the ship's consoles. Ruby walked back to the windows and stared out at the smoldering, dead scenery. The thing that did this better not be what she was starting to think it was. She didn't even want to consider it. She took deep breaths to relax herself until she noticed that someone had started sobbing behind her. She turned around to see that one of the crewmen, a woman, was tearing up as if she heard that her mother had died. Someone else cautiously approached her with a tap on the shoulder.

"Are… are you alri-" the crewman started to say before the woman suddenly tackled him. She clawed at him while screaming like an animal as if something in her snapped. Others quickly gathered around, but were too confused to do anything more.

"What on Earth are you doing?" someone else cried, "Get off him!"

The crewman that was getting clobbered by the woman finally pushed her off. The woman growled at him like a beast as if ready to attack again while he brought out a handgun saying, "Stop! I'll… I'll shoot you!"

"Don't just stand there!" Winter shouted harshly, "Restrain her!" The woman lunged again but Ruby pushed through the crowd, caught her, and shoved her against the wall, holding her there off the floor with one hand. She bit and chewed on Ruby's wrist like a frenzied zombie, causing a lot of pain that Ruby didn't express. Another crewman ran over with a box full of syringes and injected the shrieking woman with a sedative, but it didn't seem to have any effect. He injected her with another, and another, and another, then finally she seemed to settle down and keel over. Ruby let go and let her collapse onto the floor.

"What just happened?" the crewman with the syringes said, "Not even a huge cow would need that much tranquilizer. I've never seen anything like it."

"That look in her eyes… it's like it wasn't really her." someone else said.

"Is there some kind of neurotoxin in the air?"

Ruby walked over to Winter with an incredibly stoic expression, probably brought on by the 'Blake' part of her. "We need to leave now. We're too close." she tried to say subtly.

"Too close to what?" Winter asked.

"Is this seriously not enough for you yet?!" Ruby exploded, "Screw your curiosity and lets get out of here!"

"Alright, alright!" Winter said almost nervously, backing away from Ruby with a spooked look. She looked to the man at the helm and told him to "Turn the ship around."

"Yes ma'am." The ship came to a stop then started to rotate when a deep, thundering sound echoed over the lands from the south. It wasn't a growl, explosion, or anything that a name could be put to. It was more like a gust made of a million voices all screaming and whispering in a language that was not a language. The whole crew reacted as if their faces got set on fire.

"My head! Get it out!" someone screamed. The person next to him took a pen and shoved it through his own eye, as death was the only way to silence it.

"Ruby!" Winter shouted amidst the uproar as she fell to her knees and clutched her head. Blood leaked out from her ears and nose. "It doesn't effect you! Fly the ship!"

Ruby quickly took the helm and stared at the controls, completely at a loss. "I don't know how!" she cried. Blake didn't know. Miriam, whom had once flown a bullhead, ate its pilot then spat him back out when she was done with it. Neo probably knew, but Ruby would need a lot more than her hair to know what she knew. For a moment she nearly considered killing one of the crewmen so she could assimilate their knowledge, but she refused to resort to such a thing.

The ship lurched and started taking a nosedive straight toward the ground. Red lights flashed on as a warning and everything shook like there was an earthquake. Ruby grabbed the steering wheel, yoke, or whatever it was called, and moved it in every way she could think of, trying anything and just hoping that something would work. Finally the ship barely pulled up in time, lightly scraping over the ground before returning to the air. Ruby's tense, determined look crumbled to pieces when the ship flew straight again, gaining a perfect view of… _**him**_. More terrifying than she could bare, more vast than any mountain, more ancient than she could understand, the dark lord Cthulhu himself had lumbered slobberingly into sight amidst the sea of black smoke and fire. Even after all she'd been through, Ruby having finally laid eyes on _**him**_ for the first time, could not find words for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. She was coming to believe that she could overcome _any_ fear if she just took enough time to get used to it. The Grimm, the Ascended, the Shoggoths, maybe even that pharaoh guy with how human he presented himself, but Cthulhu was an insurmountable wall that stretched on in all directions for an eternity. She could never scale it, no matter how much time she had. The mortal mind would break before it scratched the surface.

The mere sight of this burned the entire crew into standing bloody _screaming_ skeletons. Ruby fell to her knees, reaching for Winter with both hands as she tried but couldn't get to her. " _Winter_!" Ruby cried. Winter's face, outlined with a look of horror and pain, degraded from that of her own, to red tissue, to a skull, to dust before Ruby's eyes as she completely collapsed onto the floor face-down and blacked out, surrounded by piles of ash.

Between becoming one of the Ascended and getting that horrific new blade for her scythe, Ruby felt like she had become invincible, but at the same time, more and more powerless to do anything about what was happening around her.

XXX

To be continued…


	20. Chapter 20: Visage

"Ruby?" Yang said, "Ruby?" she repeated, "Ruuuuuubyyyyyy?" She waved her hand in Ruby's face. "C'mon sis, talk to me, please."

Ruby blinked and realized she was sitting up in her bed in her padded room. She was back in this world, where there were no problems and all her worries were just her imagination. It was actually quite a relief to be here again. "Yang." she croaked.

"Oh phew. There _is_ someone home." Yang said gratefully, sitting down at the edge of the bed, "The doc says you're doing well. You act normal and get along with everyone now." She began to study Ruby and frowned. "But I'm not so sure you-"

Ruby only heard indistinct prattle. She moved her knees to her chest and threw her hands onto her head as if ready to pull on her hair. She was shaking and tears were forming in her eyes. "Winter…"

Yang quit rambling and seemed to take notice. "Ruby! Whats wrong?" she asked.

Ruby was hyperventilating. She did her best not to think about it, but the sight of Cthulhu was still so fresh in her mind. She felt like she was freezing. "Call it a bad dream." she said.

Yang scooted closer and put her hands on Ruby's shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. "Hey. It doesn't matter what you saw." she said mildly, "Right _now_ you're here, with your big sis."

"Y… yeah." Ruby forced herself to say. Even in this serene, quiet place, she could not find peace of mind.

"Keep it together, Ruby. You can't lose your mind now of all times." Yang said in an anxious whisper, "They think you're finally sane enough to consider letting you go. If you don't screw this up, you'd never have to come back here again."

Ruby closed her eyes, at the same time opening them in the other world to see Cthulhu still looming over her. Her eyes in the saner world shot back open as wide as they could go. "No! I want to stay here!" she shrieked with terror, "I don't want to look at that thing again!"

Yang recoiled in astonishment. "What?! Ruby, you can't seriously _want_ to stay here!" she said.

Ruby started sobbing. She didn't want any world that had Cthulhu in it to be real. She wanted to just pull the plug and make this world her _only_ world, and forever forget the other. "I can't… I just…" she said between sobs.

"Hey, hey…" Yang said helplessly, "You've got to get better so things can go back to how they were!"

"Better?" Ruby chuckled, mixing laughter into her crying. The idea of attending Beacon again seemed like a complete joke to her now. If this world wasn't real, could such a thing even happen? "Hahaha! I don't know what 'better' is anymore!" she yelled.

"Ruby, get a grip!" Yang shouted desperately, half ready to restrain her sister.

"Why?! So we can paint our nails, try on cloths, and talk about cute boys like nothing ever happened?!" Ruby laughed up at the ceiling so hard that her chest hurt.

"No, no, no. This can't be happening." Yang groaned in distress.

"What can't be happening? This thing that's been happening for years?!" Ruby said before laughing even harder. Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot. She could not imagine that there was anything outside this mental hospital, not that it mattered. Her life at Beacon was long gone in _both_ worlds.

"Stop it!" Yang now looked terrified. She covered her ears in agony but couldn't seem to shut out all the laughing. " _Shut up_!" Yang slapped Ruby in the face, but the crazy girl laughed even harder still. "Just go back to normal dammit!"

"What's going on here?!" Nurse Miriam said as she rushed into the room. She gawked at the cackling patient, then glared at Yang. "What did you say to her?" she asked in a harsh voice.

"I… I didn't…" Yang frantically pointed at Ruby looking utterly flabbergasted. "She just started freaking out of nowhere!" she cried.

"I very much doubt that." Miriam said with her hands on her hips, "She was perfectly normal yesterday and she's never gone bananas this way before. You had to have done something to set her off."

"All I said was that she had to get better!" Yang yelled.

"Did you _slap_ her?" the nurse said as she eyed the red mark on Ruby's cheek. She turned to Yang, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her away from Ruby. "I'm afraid this visit is over."

"But you don't understand! She didn't-"

"Look, her mental state was the best it's ever been during the longest time you've gone without visiting her, and then she loses her mind the moment she sees you again. What exactly am I supposed to make of that?"

"But I'm her sister!"

"For all we know, recognizing you as such might even have been the cause of this!" Miriam yelled as she dragged Yang out of the room. The door slammed shut and Ruby continued laughing.

XXX

Ruby remained paralyzed in senselessness to her bed for probably the rest of the day. It was hard to be sure without any windows, and by extension, no view of the sun. Seeing Cthulhu had put her mind through a blender. Strangely, she actually kind of liked it… not that she had any idea why. She kept chuckling, never making any movements beyond her chronic spasms. Finally, the door suddenly opened. Doctor Hill and nurse Miriam came into the room.

"Don't worry Ms. Rose, you're not in trouble." Doctor Hill said, "How are you feeling?"

"We're very sorry about yesterday." Miriam quickly threw in, sounding a little guilty, "I didn't want to leave you in here but we were just so busy."

"It's not your fault. My older sister can be quite a handful sometimes." Ruby said as she sat up, neatly folded her fingers together, and made a pleasant smile. The doctor and nurse made confused looks at each other, then looked back to her.

"Yes… she was infuriated when told that she couldn't see you until further notice. I hope this doesn't upset you as much." Doctor Hill said as he studied Ruby carefully.

"If it's for the best, I won't argue." Ruby said with a polite bow.

"Hmm… you're in a really good mood." Miriam said as she scratched her head curiously.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Ruby said in a oddly happy expression.

"Well, it's just unusual, especially considering the way you were laughing yesterday." Miriam said worriedly.

"Eh, I just had a little moment there. I'm over it." Ruby said with a casual laugh. She turned to the doctor. "So Doctor Hill, am I free to go to the rec room for some breakfast?"

"Not quite yet. I'd like to do a quick psych evaluation on you first." Doctor Hill said, staring Ruby down hard.

"Kay', fine with me." Ruby said with a shrug.

The three of them headed to the doctor's office where Ruby was asked question after question in a test that was anything but quick. She always answered immediately, she never stopped smiling, and she didn't show any signs of obsession, phobia, or delusion of any kind. Halfway through it, she was given an inkblot test, where she was shown shapeless blobs of ink on paper and asked to explain what she saw, mainly just to see if she'd show any reluctance to describe her thinking processes openly.

"Alright." Ruby said as she leaned forward to look at the first sheet of paper. She saw herself abandoning Weiss in R'lyeh when that wall of gore had separated them. "A pretty butterfly." Ruby said whimsically. She looked at the next one, and saw Blake crying as she was torn to pieces and assimilated. "Some nice flowers." Ruby said playfully. She looked at the third and final one, and saw Winter screaming as she and the rest of her ship's crew were reduced to ash. "Clouds." Ruby chirped. Doctor Hill lowered the paper and just stared at her for a long while. He didn't seem the least bit convinced that she was telling the truth.

"You're a real head-scratcher, Ms. Rose." the doctor said.

"We shouldn't question the good fortune." the nurse whispered in the doctor's ear.

"Can I have breakfast now please?" Ruby said. She looked over at the clock on the wall to see that it was almost noon. "Or lunch?

The doctor remained silent for a while before making a defeated sigh. "Alright. Just stay out of trouble." he said.

"Will do." Ruby said. She stood up the security guard at the doorway let her pass. The moment she was out of their sight, her mask of sanity quickly fell apart. She grabbed onto her hair and pulled on it as she faintly chuckled with bloodshot eyes and a huge open-mouthed smile. "Suckers."

XXX

Ruby sat by herself at one of the cafeteria tables in the recreation room. The food she was given didn't have any taste to it, not like in the other world, but in that she just wasn't aware of 'taste' in general. Still, she ate and kept asking for more until she was stuffed, as this was likely the last time she'd have a chance to eat for a long while with what she was planning to do. Now done, she left the table and stood up. She blinked and was suddenly standing in the bridge of a crashed Atlesian airship, after having just got up. She looked down and found Myrtenaster lying in an ash pile below her. She reached down to take it then fastened it to her belt. She turned and walked into the snow and fire. She blinked again and was back in the mental hospital, where she began to look for a certain someone. She didn't see him around the rec room, so she coolly walked through all the other places the staff allowed her to go. She finally found the guy she was looking for at the other side of the building, sitting on a couch beside a window reading a magazine.

"Hey, I've been looking for you!" Ruby said cheerfully and with excitement.

"What for? Bored?" asked the young man Ruby's age that often hit on her. He tossed the magazine he had been reading and looked straight at her. "Or has the little red gem grown… curious?" he added.

"Well, I've kind of been wondering about something, yes." Ruby said, blushing and twiddling her thumbs together.

"Hmph, and that would be?" the young man asked with an intrigued smile. He then frowned when he got a good, long look at Ruby's face. Though she smiled brightly, there was something off about her eyes. They weren't glowing red or anything. They were just like the eyes found on a head that's been chopped off. Eyes that were half-open, empty, and not looking at anything. Dead eyes. "Wait a sec. What's wrong with y-"

"I was wondering if you wanted to…" Ruby hurriedly said, trying to distract the guy from what he might have been catching onto, "take a peek?" Ruby grabbed the bottom of her patient gown and pulled it up above her knees.

"Heh, well I wouldn't stop you from letting me." the young man said with a composed demeanor. Unlike Jaune, this boy sure knew how to act cool and show confidence around girls.

"Hehehehe, stop pretending you're not dieing to see it." Ruby said as she pulled her patient gown up to show off her dark red panties, "Or is the view just better than you thought it would be?"

"Well, it's got _me_ curious now. I'll give you that." the young man said with a nod and satisfied smile.

"So, you want to see more?" Ruby asked, getting really frisky.

"I thought you said you would 'find some other way to relax'."

"I've kind of changed my mind. I think I… want to do it." Ruby said bashfully. She heard somebody coming so she quickly let go of her patient gown, letting it drop, and pretended like nothing was going on. One of this place's many doctors passed by and disappeared down the hall without bothering to look at them.

"That's neat and all, but you know as well as I do that there's no place we can go where a doctor or nurse wouldn't walk in on us."

"No place but that room at the back of the garage." Ruby said with a mischievous grin.

"It's kind of strange that you'd be so determined to do this." the young man said suspiciously.

"It's not like I have a 'better way to pass the time', you know?"

"Are you even the real Ruby Rose?"

"Nope. I'm just a crazy girl that's gotten a tad bit lonely and wants some company."

The young man shrugged and stood up. "Alright, crazy girl. I'll play your game." he said. Ruby followed the guy through the building until they came to a door where he brought out a bobby pin and a screwdriver. Where he had gotten them, Ruby could only guess, but whatever the case he picked the lock with them like a pro. "Ladies first." he said, holding the door open for Ruby.

"Do I look like a proper lady to you, y… you… umm…" Ruby stuttered, trying to recall what this guy's name was. It struck her as odd that even now, she couldn't think of it, even though she knew she had heard it countless times. She had been in this place for years, and yet she only knew Miriam's and Hill's names.

"When you're crazy, you're whatever you want to be." the young man said as he doubled checked to make sure no one saw them before shutting the door behind them.

"Yeah, whether you want to or not." Ruby said, then looked around the garage to see four vans parked side-by-side, all facing thin metal roller doors than were shut. She knew there was a parking area at the front of the building for employees and visitors alike, so these vans were probably here for when the hospital needed to pick up or drop off a patient or something. There was also a door behind the vans, the 'room at the back of the garage'. She was about to walk forward the the young man grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"Wait! The security camera!" the young man said, gesturing to the large, bulky, and probably old camera on the wall opposite to the roller doors. Ruby, whom had stopped right outside its range of vision, immediately shook the boy's hand off before running up the wall and kicking the camera. "Dang!" the boy yelped as the camera noisily bounced over the concrete floor, "You know, even if it didn't see you, they're going to send someone to fix it soon."

"Then we better be quick." Ruby said flirtatiously.

The young man frowned and made a piecing glare at Ruby. "You know what? Forget it. I don't want any part in-" He was cut off when Ruby shoved him against the wall and swung the broken camera like a club, barely missing the boy's head and smashing it against the wall less than an inch from his ear. A loud 'bang' echoed throughout the room.

" _You're going to open that next door over there_ , _comprende_?" Ruby said, pointing to the door at the back of garage with her other hand. Her eyes were suddenly bloodshot now. There was an indescribable expression on her face.

"Sure, no problem." the boy said, trying hard to hide how spooked he was. He was put right to work on unlocking the next door, which he opened as fast as the last one. "I promise I wont tell anyone if you don't-" Ruby suddenly whacked him on the head with the broken camera and sent him falling face-down onto the floor. She screamed like a maniac as she beat him on the back with it over and over and over.

"Oh, right. His name is Lavernius." Ruby said, suddenly completely calm, "Funny name. No wonder I keep forgetting it!" she added, half laughing and half crying as she tossed the camera aside. She knelt down to check on Lavernius. He was still breathing, as she only hit him on the head once. He would be fine. Ruby stepped over him and went into the room he unlocked. On the wall was a bulletin board, which had a number of key rings hanging from push pins that were below different plastic labels. Ruby took the key ring under the text reading 'Van #4' and headed straight for the corresponding vehicle.

Ruby stepped over soot and debris as she made her way toward a crashed Bullhead she had noticed half-buried in the snow. She grabbed the back of the transport with both hands and slowly dragged it out with all the strength she could muster. It was absurdly heavy, impossible for any one person to move, but to an Ascended it was nothing more than a moderately weighty metal box. She walked around the transport to inspect it. It seemed to be in a fairy good condition. She stopped beside the forth van in the garage. She opened the front-left door, got in the driver's seat, shut the door, and started the van. She had never driven a car before, but that was the least of her worries. The Bullhead began to take off, slowly rising over the fields of ruin that used to be the kingdom of Atlas. Ruby floored the gas pedal, hearing the tires screech for a second before the van sprang forward and burst straight through the roller door in front of it. The Bullhead flew south-east, far into the distance.

"Pointless…" Ruby whispered. She sank back into the Bullhead's pilot seat and felt at the collar on her neck. It wasn't working and seemed to be partially melted. Had it been fried when Cthulhu looked in her direction? Whatever the case, she removed the collar and tossed it aside. "Its only use was for being around people anyways. I don't need it."

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **A big thank you for all the feedback. I mean it. I wouldn't be doing all this otherwise.**


	21. Chapter 21: Pale Shadow

**At the time of posting this chapter, the first episode of RWBY Volume 4 will debut awfully soon, so I guess it's fitting for me to celebrate by** _ **finally**_ **posting this.**

* * *

Ruby strode into a village in the swamps west of Mistral. Mist from the surrounding bog crept through the streets and moss was growing everywhere. It was late at night, but not a star could be seen in the sky. The orange-yellow glow shining out through the windows of almost every building was the only source of light in this extremely old town. Most of the buildings were made of a chipped, worn down stone, with a few made of a moist, rotting wood. Ruby had her hood up as she walked the streets, looking creepy enough so that no one would approach her, but not too threatening so that no one would take her for an immediate danger. After the bullhead had run out of fuel and crash-landed, she had been fighting Grimm nonstop the whole rest of the way here, though of course she wasn't tired. She had never been here before, but guessing from all the Vale refugees everywhere, this small town wasn't typically this overcrowded. "So much people…" Ruby muttered, fingering the rapier on her belt. She no longer cared if she snapped and started a murderous rampage. These people were already as good as dead one way or another. She only restrained herself now in the interest of keeping a low profile.

A blast of horrible visions and thoughts suddenly struck Ruby's mind; Cthulhu's telepathic shout unintentionally hitting anything that would pick it up. Ruby stopped walking and clutched her head, causing a few people along both sides of the street to look at her curiously. She turned and headed straight into a dark alleyway where she could remain on her own until it passed. She leaned her back against a stone wall, mumbling bizarre words to herself like she had on Winter's ship. A stranger approached with a knife.

"Alright kid, put your hands where I can see 'em!" the stranger yelled, holding the tip of his knife forward. Ruby remained silent, keeping her head lowered and hood up. "Hey, I said 'hands in the air'!" he said. Ruby still didn't respond. "You got a death wish or something?!" the thief shouted.

" _Yes_ …" Ruby said and suddenly lunged her head forward. Her hood flew off as she rammed her face into the knife pointed at her. The tip of the knife came out the back of her head. Those inhuman red eyes blinked. " _But it can never be granted_!" she shrieked as she grabbed onto both sides of the would-be thief's head and squeezed.

"Ah! M- monster!" the thief cried in terror. He tried to free himself, but Ruby's arms were as immovable as stone.

" _Stop shouting_! _You're scaring the little girl_!" Ruby shouted like a happy lunatic. She crushed the man's head between her hands like a grape. " _Scaring the little girl_! _Hehahaha_!" she laughed. She flicked her hands to get the blood off then put her hood back up. She headed out the other side of the alleyway and came into the town square. She stopped when she remembered the knife that was stabbed through her head, just before anyone else noticed it. She pulled it out and dropped it with a subtle 'clink' as it hit the ground. She then headed into the town square and sat down on an old stone bench beside a few people. The town square was a wide open plaza, stuffed so tightly with camping tents that only a single person could fit between the rows and columns of them. Being the most crowded part of town, it was no surprise that a number of traveling merchants had set up shop within and around here. Most were serving food freshly cooked off a grill, though there were some selling somewhat strange, less classifiable products.

"Come one, come all!" a showman shouted with a deep, gruff voice, bringing everyone but perhaps Ruby to look at him at the very center of the plaza. His caravan was setup beside the makeshift wooden stage he was walking back and forth on with his arms spread out. The man was bald, had a thick black beard accenting his jaw, had broad shoulders, and looked to be around the old age of fifty. He was wearing black, round glasses and a timeworn business suit. Something about him felt… off. "The recent calamity has left so many of us scarred and tired." the man said, "So few can afford what would be necessary to rebuild their lives, such as medicine or cybernetic limbs, but now you'll no longer have to!"

Ruby tuned out the man's speech after that. "Just some guy trying to cash in on other people's misery." she muttered to herself. She hung her head low and closed her eyes before falling into deep concentration. "C'mon… I know they brought you somewhere around here." she whispered, "I can sense that you're close." She could still feel out the one she was seeking, but she had trouble pinning down his location with so much people packed this closely together.

"-but you need not take my word for it! I'll give you a demonstration!" the showman shouted with something in hand. To call it a syringe would be generous. It was a gritty looking vial capped by pig leather and a needle, a makeshift syringe filled with a strange thick dark-red liquid. He extended his other hand toward another man on stage with him, an apparent volunteer from his 'audience'. Judging by his clothes, this volunteer was a policeman from Vale. He had several facial scars that looked fresh and was missing his left arm, perhaps from a run-in with an Ascended. The tall, sinister showman gave the lawman an injection of the mystery substance, and within seconds, the police officer's scars faded and his arm grew back before everyone's eyes. The entire plaza erupted with amazed 'oohs' and 'ahs' before breaking out in a vigorous applause.

"Huh?" Ruby looked up at the exhibition, now genuinely surprised by what just happened. She wondered for moment if her eyes were lying to her. She knew she was crazy now, but everyone else here seemed to have seen it too.

"It heals you, gives you new found strength, allows you to think and see more clearly!" the showman proclaimed proudly.

"Blimey! That's some sort of witchcraft!" someone else shouted.

"I assure you, it isn't any kind of magic," the showman said, "just a remarkable feat of science!"

"Something like that should be impossible for us… erm… for man." Ruby whispered. She watched as a wave of people, most of which seemed to have an injury, rushed to the stage with the desire to purchase some of this substance. "Maybe catching and dissecting an Ascended is all they would need for a breakthrough." she thought out loud to herself. A scream was suddenly heard from the alleyway behind her. Someone had apparently found the headless corpse of the thief she squashed, so she stood up and continued walking. She came to the town's inn, which according to the old stories, was the best place to pick up on rumors. She didn't know if that was actually true.

Ruby walked through the open door, leaving the dark streets behind and entering the bright interior. The place was crawling with lowlifes, thugs, and even a few Huntsmen. Despite Ruby's small stature, she didn't look out of place with all the weapons she was carrying, those being the rapier on her belt and both Crescent Rose and the lance on her back. With no vacant seat in sight, she casually walked to a corner of the room, leaned her back against the wall with her arms crossed, and was startled by the innkeeper's astonishingly short skirt length. Her uncle Qrow would be defeated by the mere sight of it.

XXX

Ruby had at first been driving the van through middle of the road, though she quickly learned from all the cars honking at her that she was to stay on the right side. She didn't yet understand traffic laws, but it was easy enough to just look at what the other drivers were doing and use common sense. She drove through the residential part of town on her way to the commercial district. Here there were a lot of cars parked along both sides of the street around here, but her stolen van was the only one driving anywhere.

After turning left at an intersection and driving straight for a few more blocks, a small kid around eight years of age ran out into the street in front of the van like it was this dumb kid's dream to get run over. Ruby immediately slammed the breaks and watched as the kid's mother ran out into the street to put her arms around her son. She glared at Ruby with a look of hatred as if this was somehow her fault before walking her son back off the street. Ruby felt a dark urge to drive up the sidewalk and run them over, but she pushed it aside, with effort. Instead she stuck her tongue out at them before stomping the gas pedal to move on. Growling to herself and yanking on her hair, she tried not to look at anyone else along the sidewalks. For some reason she just wanted to strangle anyone she saw. She wasn't even angry; she just felt like she hated everyone and had forgotten the reason why. Sadly, she remembered the girl that wanted to be everyone's friend and make everything better. Whatever happened to that girl? It's like that aspiration, the very thing that made her tick, had been pulled out of her and crushed. Was that how she had snapped? Did it matter anymore?

Ruby later stopped along a T junction. She wanted to turn left, but unlike the intersections she had seen before, there were no stop signs. "Wait, how does this work-" She jumped when a loud honk was heard behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw that a car had stopped there with a man flailing his arms around in anger and impatience through its front window. Ruby gave an aggravated grunt, put the gearshift in reverse, floored the gas pedal, and rammed the back of the van into the man's car. She then drove off at full speed, seeing in the rear-view mirror that the whole front end of the man's car was ruined, its front window shattered. Ruby laughed to herself, not knowing why she would do such a thing.

Another hour passed and Ruby reached the commercial district without incident. She drove into the large parking lot of a shopping plaza, parked the van crooked, put the key in her bra as she had no pockets, and wondered for a moment why the van was slowly sliding backwards before finally engaging the hand-break to stop it. Her head was pounding and she felt herself slip in and out of conciseness. She couldn't help but pull on her hair with both hands as she threw her head around, bumping it against the side window a few times. Was it withdrawal from her medications? Something else?

Though Ruby was sure it had just been the middle of the afternoon, it was the dead of night when she finally stepped out of the van and started to walk around. Street lights lit up the strip mall, but every building had black windows and a sign that read 'closed'. It must have been a strange sight, seeing a lone girl walk across the parking lot in a patient gown like a zombie, but there was no one else around at this hour. She suddenly attacked a payphone like an animal, tearing a portion of it off before throwing it through the window of a clothes store and shattering it. An alarm went off as she climbed in and began to look around. She grabbed a few things including a tank top, a skirt, pantyhose, and knee-high flat-heeled boots, all of which were the color black as she couldn't find anything red and black, then headed back out.

"Hey, you got to pay for those!" Ruby yelled in a toddler's bad pronunciation, mocking the store's employees that weren't here and the alarm that was still ringing. She walked across the parking lot, returned to the van, opened the back end, and threw in what she had stolen, glancing around to make sure no one was coming. She shut the van's trunk, got back in the driver's seat, drove off, then parked the van in an alleyway four blocks away. After removing all the tags and barcode stickers from the stolen clothes, she threw them on in place of her old outfit. She also put an elastic hair tie around her right wrist. She honestly had no idea why other girls did this, but it was in style, so she would do the same to fit in. She exited the van through the back and decided to leave it behind with the patient gown and slippers inside, as it was too obvious for anyone that might be looking for her. With how she appeared now, she could walk around in plain sight without getting any curious looks, just as long as she kept her cool.

XXX

Yang and Pyrrha walked side-by-side through the damp, mossy streets. It wasn't easy getting used to staying in a dumpy town stuffed with refugees, but it wasn't like they had anywhere else to go. Mistral was full to the point of overflowing, as was Vacuo according to what Ren and Nora told them during a long-distance call from there, just before the Cross Continental Transmit System went offline. It felt like the whole world outside of a five-mile radius had gone dark since then. No one had any clue of what was going on out there.

"There's talk about some kind of wonder drug being sold at the center of town." Pyrrha said, feeling at her stump arm, "They say it makes severed limbs grow back, like magic or something."

"Heh, I'll believe that when I see it." Yang said dismissively.

"Even after all that's happened?" Pyrrha said dismally.

"If I were a con artist, I'd bank on people believing anything now." Yang said with an eye-roll.

"Fair enough."

It was starting to rain, so the two girls headed into the town's only inn. It was rather loud with chatter from how crowded it was. As there were no empty seats, they leaned against the wall and each gave a heavy sigh. "To think we're the only ones left of the old gang…" Yang said.

"It just doesn't seem real." Pyrrha said, attempting to cross her arms shyly, though she only had one to work with, "I've gotten so used to being around my team. I keep looking over my shoulder and expecting to see them there."

"At least you still have a team…" Yang said despairingly, "Ren and Nora are probably thinking the same thing we are in Vacuo, and Jaune is being held by Vale's authorities." She hung her head over and pondered. "I'm probably the last living member of team RWBY."

"You know your sister is still out there." Pyrrha said, "Somewhere." she added more quietly.

"I'll probably never see her again," Yang said softly, "and I'm afraid that I might not recognize her if I did."

There was a loud crash when a table was suddenly knocked over from someone getting thrown into it. The guy that pushed him was a big, red-faced man that was visibly drunk. "You take our food, housing, act like you own the place, then say it isn't good enough for you?!" he shouted as he shoved the person again. The guy getting yelled at bumped into someone else, whom in turn punched him in the face. Two more people joined in on the brawl on behalf of the guy that was punched, and in no time a bar fight had broken out between more than half the people in the inn.

"Ugh." Pyrrha tugged on Yang's arm before saying, "Who cares if it's raining outside? Let's get out of here."

Yang shrugged and turned toward the exit. "Kay, fi-" She froze when her eyes fell upon a familiar figure, whom seemed to have noticed her at the same time. Yang couldn't see the person's face with that hood up, but there was no mistaking that outfit and small build. "Sis?" Yang rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"No, no, _no_!" Ruby babbled incessantly, clutching her head with both hands and gritting her teeth as if enraged. She ran straight through the wooden wall and back out into the street, causing the tavern brawl to stop as everyone froze to look and wonder what just happened. Yang rushed out the inn's front door then pursued her sister through the now heavy, furious rainstorm. The once crowded streets were now empty, as everyone had gone inside or in their tent to avoid the rain. Ruby moved so fast that she was literally leaving a rain tunnel close behind her. The stone ground beneath her cracked as she leapt into the air, soaring right over the buildings in front of her. Yang needed the recoil from firing Ember Celica to launch herself high enough to make the same jump. She continued to chase her sister over the rooftops, but it became abundantly clear that she had no hope in catching her this way. She fired two rocket-like projectiles that detonated on a rooftop, causing it to cave-in with Ruby on it. Ruby almost instantly smashed out the front door and back onto the streets. Yang leapt off the roof, rolling over the ground before continuing the chase, then grabbed the lid off a garbage can and threw it at Ruby like a Frisbee. Ruby stopped, spun around, and caught the lid with one hand, crushing it with her grip like it were paper, then tossed it back only for Yang to swat it aside. Instead of fleeing again, Ruby stayed put and clutched her head in agony again. Intending to knock her out, Yang threw the hardest punch she could muster with Ember Celica, which Ruby answered with a barehanded punch. Their fists slammed into each other, creating a visible shockwave through the falling rain. Ruby was completely unaffected, but Yang was knocked down onto her back. She sat up and saw that the front end of her gauntlet was smashed inward in the shape of a small fist.

" _You should've stayed away_!" Ruby growled angrily. Her head was shaking around in a frenzy like she were having a seizure. She looked like she was fighting herself.

"You're coming with me whether you want to or not!" Yang shouted. She punched Ruby in the face, launching her into the stone wall of a building. Yang landed into her with a knee strike, then proceeded to punch her in the face repeatedly. Ruby just remained still and took it. "Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Go to sleep!" Yang said hurriedly as she kept punching. Ruby's hood flew off, revealing a face defined by hatred that Yang didn't recognize. Ruby then shoved her away with one hand, once again seeming interested in defending herself.

"Say I did come with you. You don't even know what you'd do next." Ruby said, sounding perfectly normal again, "You always have rushed in without thinking."

"I'm not letting you run off again!" Yang shouted, "You're the only little sister I have!" She jumped forward for another punch, but Ruby caught her out of the air by the neck. Ruby's arms morphed to become muscular before she slammed Yang into the street, sitting over her as she strangled her sister. Unable to break free, Yang figured that the only thing left to try was to appeal to her.

"Sis! It's me! It's Yang!" Yang coughed out.

" _You're sister is dead_!" Ruby yelled in a tone that could only be described as 'delight'. A dumpster suddenly slammed into her side and knocked her off of Yang. It rose up into the air then landed onto Ruby, holding her down like a huge hand. Pyrrha stood a short distance down the street with her hand reached out, manipulating the hunk of metal with her semblance. Ruby lifted the dumpster up against the magnetic force and stood back up, hissing at Pyrrha like a big angry reptile. Pyrrha gasped, looking horrified. Seeing someone she had always known to be so innocent, caring, and fun-loving in such a way was just heartbreaking.

"Oh Ruby, what's happened to you?" Pyrrha said in shock.

"To look upon him is to go mad…" Ruby muttered, then threw the dumpster at Pyrrha, whom ducked at the last moment. "The pharaoh too!" Ruby screamed, covering her ears, " _He's here_! _He's everywhere I go_! _Could get us_! _Doesn't want to_! _Watches us suffer_!" She laughed out loud like she had heard the funniest joke ever told. " _Like refusing to turn on 'god mode' in a video game_ … _just saps away the fun_!"

"You're… you're…" Pyrrha stuttered in disbelief.

"You're, you're, you're!" Ruby mocked, "You think I don't _know_ how crazy I sound?!" A swarm of metal objects suddenly crashed into her from all directions. They squeezed on her tightly like a cocoon that still showed her face and lifted her off the ground.

"Sorry Ruby! This is for your own good!" Pyrrha shouted, pushing her semblance to its limit. Ruby struggled, but as she tore through the metal like it were cardboard, Pyrrha kept reforming it to keep her from breaking free. It was like watching an animal trying to free itself from water it was drowning in. Then, out of nowhere, Ruby stopped struggling. Only the heavy rainfall could be heard for a good long while.

"Pyrrha?" Ruby said, staring at her captor with a sad look on her face. She had her old silver eyes again.

"Ruby?!" Pyrrha said with surprise.

"I… I think I'm alright now." Ruby said calmly, "Whatever was wrong with me before, it's gone, at least for the moment. Can you put me down now please?"

Pyrrha stood there in confusion for a moment, before squinting awfully hard at Ruby. "I'm not falling for that." she said, resolute.

"But Pyrrha, I'm your friend!" Ruby said, sounding genuinely hurt, "Please, I'm asking nicely. If you put me down, I promise that _I'll rip your bloody soul out_!" she suddenly screamed as those unnatural red eyes returned, " _And you better believe that it's not just crazy talk_! _I've actually done it to someone before_!" Pyrrha cringed, looking visibly disturbed by that outburst. During a brief flash of lightning, she caught a glimpse of a black figure standing right below Ruby. He was dressed like a pharaoh and had a tall row of teeth in place of a face.

"Whoa!" Pyrrha cried as she leapt back in terror. She could have missed it if she blinked, but she knew what she saw. "It's just one crazy thing after another…" she whispered.

"Pfft. Ya' think?" Ruby said rudely. She grabbed her dark-bladed scythe and slashed all around at the metal holding her up. The metal sizzled away like paper getting set on fire as she landed back on the ground with Crescent Rose raised at the ready. For some reason, she had a hard time maintaining any interest toward Pyrrha. Every fiber of her being made her want to go after Yang, whom was sitting there feeling at her neck as she coughed. "Kind of like Miri…" Ruby muttered, "It's like I'm more 'her' than 'me' now." She took only one step toward her sister before she was suddenly shredded by a startling rush of thousands of bullets. A large firing line of about thirty men with smoking guns, military and policemen of Vale and Mistral, had formed behind her after finally taking notice of the commotion out here. They were bewildered when she didn't even react outside of her maimed form, even her clothes, quickly regenerating from the damage. She spun around and sprang at them with her scythe, roaring like a beast.

Pyrrha covered her mouth in an ill attempt to contain her shock. "The real Ruby Rose would never do this…" she whispered.

Ruby sliced through the men as they kept shooting her, but in addition to getting cut to pieces, their dismembered bodies would also shrivel up before decaying into piles of ash on the street. Pyrrha ran forward with her javelin, but Ruby casually flicked the tip of the weapon aside with her finger without looking, knocking her down. More people, military and militia, kept coming from down the street and out of alleyways in response to all the screaming. " _Rhaaagh_! _You're making too much of a scene, stupid girl_!" Ruby agonizingly repeated the voice in her head, tearing at her hair, " _They'll move him if you keep this up_! _Leave_!"

"Who's that?" someone asked.

"What's wrong with her eyes?"

"Who was she talking to?"

Ruby's jaw split apart into dozens of whip-like tentacles with a leech-like mouth full of teeth at the center. She angrily shrieked at the people gathering around then jumped and seemingly flew away. Onlookers watched in confusion as she disappeared into the thick rainstorm.

"Well, that just happened." Yang said, coughing before she helped Pyrrha up. "Are you okay? Any cuts or stabs?"

"Never mind me. She was much more determined to hurt you." Pyrrha said.

"That's not what I meant." Yang said as she shook her head, "Thing is, whatever she and Jaune have come down with, we still don't know how it spreads."

"We know what it does when it goes too far," Pyrrha said worriedly, "and it's definitely reached that point on Ruby."

Yang sighed. She wondered if there was anything left of Ruby in whatever it was she just saw. There were echoes of a person, sure, but sisters knew each other, and what she had felt from this thing was the soul, or lack thereof, of a stranger. "Whatever that thing used to be, it's not Ruby anymore." Yang said bitterly, "More like her pale shadow."

XXX

 _I've gone from pillar to pariah in the slide,_

 _In seas of doubt I swim, against the turning tide._

 _Broken bodies line the walls,_

 _Midas empires crash and fall,_

 _Wings that melt when we try to soar._

 _Close my eyes as I descend,_

 _To the gold rush at it's end,_

 _Take me back to before…_

 _This isn't human anymore!_

 _Look into the natural heart,_

 _Following the beat of the chemical._

 _This isn't human anymore!_

 _Tearing the connections apart,_

 _Crawling at the feet of our pedestals._

 _Are you still human at the core?_

 _Look into the natural heart, don't let it turn to stone!_

 _Are you still human at the core?_

 _Look into the natural heart, don't let it turn to stone!_

Ruby stumbled into a dark alleyway and stopped when she was sure she had lost them. She was alone. She had been alone since she killed Blake at Beacon. She ripped at her hair and screamed with her mouth closed as she threw her head around violently. " _Go back_! _Devour her_ , no, I don't want to! _Only way to save her_! _Cthulhu will come soon_! I can't do it, _nothing you can't do_! _Ascending as close as we can ever get to the Great Old Ones_! _We're so high above mortals that we're like gods_ , but next to Cthulhu, even calling us ants wouldn't be a fair comparison. _As powerful as Miri was_ , still too weak to make a difference!" Ruby whined to herself. She finally calmed down, then realized that her mouth still looked like a leech's that was surrounded with thin tentacles, like the ones on a jellyfish. It was absolutely disgusting. " _Can't change it back_? _Stuck this way_! _Why can't I change it back_?!" she driveled, unable to assume her human form again. She breathed heavily beneath the soothing rain, then slowly wrapped her red cape around her mouth like a scarf, covering her face below the nose. If she really had to, she could just eat someone else's hair. "Heh, I'm just like Miri." Ruby muttered as she calmly walked forward, "As time went on, she forgot who she was. It got harder and harder for her to put on her original face." Was it wrong that it no longer scared her? "Is it wrong that I keep talking to myself?"

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **Alright guys, name what that poem-bit at the end was from.**


	22. Chapter 22: Introspection

Ruby stood in an alleyway somewhere in Vale's commercial district. The sky was cloudy but there was no storm. The sounds of rainfall had been replaced with the sounds of steady traffic. She walked out of the alleyway and onto a sidewalk facing a mildly busy street. Cars who's destinations could only be guessed at drove by. She moved along the sidewalk until she came to a crosswalk, noting that the pedestrian light on the other side of the street was a red hand symbol. There was other one person waiting to cross, a middle-aged man in a business suit that looked severely deprived of sleep. She stood beside him on one foot, with only the toe of her other boot touching the ground. Her free leg bounced side-to-side, as was normal for a person in the middle of waiting for something.

"Wow. Are you okay, buddy?" Ruby finally asked the man.

"Ugh, I couldn't be worse." the man said, trying to sound as polite as he could. He rubbed at his eyes with his left hand. "I come home after a long day of work, and when I try to get some sleep my neighbor thinks that seven-in-the-evening is a perfect time to build a rocket ship or something in his backyard! The sounds of hammers, saws cutting wood, scrap metal getting dumped into a big container; it went on for bloody hours! It was so constant! It had no pattern so I couldn't tune it out!" he groaned, "And when it finally settles down, the phone rings nonstop because of some idiot that turned out to have been dialing the wrong number! I didn't get an ounce of sleep and I've got a throbbing headache! I'm freaking losing it here!"

"Hmph." Ruby shrugged, "I wouldn't know much about 'losing it'. It's always been sunshine and bunnies for me." A car zoomed by, running over a deep puddle. A huge, muddy splash sprang up and landed all over the man, but completely missed Ruby. "Woah! Umm… just pretend it's a day at the water park?" Ruby said, trying to sound encouraging.

"What I would give to be young and cheerful again." the man muttered irritably. He noted the way Ruby was dressed, as well as the long hair that had recently been combed straight. "You heading off to meet your boyfriend or something?" he asked.

"Erm… uh… maybe." Ruby said. The pedestrian light became a green person doing a walking motion. She and her tired, soaked new friend started walking across the street.

"How old are you anyways?" the man asked.

Ruby stroked her chin and thought for a while. She really had no clue what her age was anymore. "Hmm, what year is it?" she asked.

"What?"

"Nothing." Ruby quickly said, realizing that she was getting carried away. Upon reaching the other side of other street, the man headed left while Ruby headed right. "Well, I'm this way." Ruby said and pointed the way she was going.

"Alright, goodbye." the man grumbled without looking and walked off.

"Take care," Ruby said as she walked backwards, waving at him, "And remember, every day, no matter how bad, is better than no day at all!" She cupped her hands around her mouth to shout as she moved further away. "If it wasn't clear, 'not having a day' meant being _dead_!" She turned around and walked straight. She quickly realized that she might have come off as a bit creepy with that last comment. Having completely lost touch with what was considered normal, it was to be expected that she might slip up while pretending to be just that. She clutched her head and grinded her teeth so hard that they bled. " _Stupid girl_!" she hissed at herself, " _Just don't talk to anyone unless you need to use them for something_." She checked over her shoulder just to be sure and saw that her sister Yang had come onto the sidewalk and was looking around. Ruby quickly darted around the next corner to hide and carefully peeked out. Yang hadn't spotted her and looked awfully frustrated, assuming that the trail had gone cold. "Darn it. _I_ _thought we lost her_." Ruby whispered to herself.

"Ruby!" Yang called out, "Sis, stop running! I'm trying to help you!"

" _She wants to lock you up_." Ruby hissed, then turned and ran down the next block. As she ran, she checked over her shoulder to see if Yang was following her and ended up bumping into someone. She landed on her back then sat up to see a young woman in her early twenties, getting up and staring back in the same manner. She was dressed in casual summer clothes, had shoulder-length curly blonde hair, and was bearing a look of disgust. Dozens of packed shopping bags were scattered all over the sidewalk, which the young woman had dropped when Ruby ran into her. Two other women of the same age, probably her friends, stood by each side of her, one being a fiery redhead and the other a brunette.

"I swear." the blonde one grumbled as she stood up and looked down at Ruby, "If all the harlots in this city are as clueless as this one…"

"Sorry." Ruby breathed shyly.

"Well," the redhead said, "at least she _knows_ she's beneath you."

"She clearly knows who you are." said the brunette, "She's shaking."

"Doesn't make her any less a retard." the blonde one sneered.

Ruby sprang up more nervously, worried that Yang might overhear the commotion from around the corner. "Calm down, pretty please," Ruby beckoned desperately, "I said I was sorry."

"You think that makes it better?" the blonde one spat, "If you want _my_ forgiveness, you'll pick up my things and hand them back like someone that has manners, now!"

" _I said I was sorry_!" Ruby screamed and punched the blonde straight in the face, knocking her ten feet away where she landed on the ground and remained motionless. Ruby then grabbed the redhead's arm and snapped her elbow the opposite way it was supposed to bend, breaking it. The brunette dropped her shopping bags and tried to run, but she was much too slow in high heels. Ruby chased her down, tackled her onto the ground from behind, and beat her head with one fist like a drum until long after she became silent and stopped moving. Ruby finally stopped and realized that she was hyperventilating. Her fist was covered in blood, not hers, but she couldn't walk around like this until she found a drinking fountain or something. She stood up and ran off.

XXX

The short ranged radio seemed to have done a great job spreading the word about the incredible miracle cure. It had only been an hour and already people were flooding into the already-overflowing small town. The ill and the injured pushed and shoved desperately for their miracle cure from the eerie man selling them, whom seemed to have an unlimited supply. The heavy rain didn't bother the crowd in the slightest. An answer to all their problems was here in a desperate time. This place was overcrowded before, but when the rain came, the people were still able squeeze together and fit into everywhere that was considered an interior. Now, people were packed shoulder to shoulder in the streets as well. Ruby traveled through the alleyways, which wasn't packed but still had people. She didn't have her hood up, but still wore her cape like a scarf to cover her mouth.

" _Visual and auditory hallucinations_! _Delusional_! _Paranoia_! _Disorganized speech_! _Might be schizophrenia_! _Do you agree doctor_?!" Ruby spoke on the verge of bursting out with laughter. The people she walked by stared at her nervously. She was aware of them, but that didn't stop her from carrying on with her incoherent ramblings. " _Not sure_! _Family doesn't have history of it_! _Need to run more tests_! _Prescribe this medicine_! _Hahaha_!" She came to an opening to the overcrowded street. Instead of leaving the alleyway, she climbed up the wall like a spider then ran and jumped along the rooftops to avoid traffic and unwanted attention. Like with the cold, she could no longer be bothered by a bad smell while still being fully aware of it, and the town beneath her now reeked like a pile of soggy corpses when it had only smelled like soggy wood and decaying moss before.

The people below either didn't see or hear Ruby through the thick and loud rainfall, or the sight of a young huntress parkouring across the town wasn't too unusual. Whichever it was, everyone seemed wholly focused only on getting their miracle cure to acknowledge anything else. No one was getting trampled, but they certainly were pushing and shoving.

Ruby was halfway across another rooftop when she suddenly stopped and spun around, staring down the pharaoh that stood only an arm's reach away. " _Why are you still following me_?!" Ruby screamed, spitting saliva everywhere, "Do you have to or something? Did reading that book make you stick to me?" The pharaoh just stared back in silence. The rain passed through him like he wasn't there and he remained dry. " _Maybe_ _you seriously have nothing better to do_?!" Ruby shouted, " _Or are you just into stalking little girls_?" Throwing a fit, she lifted her skirt and showed her panties. " _Here_! _You've had a peek_! _Now go away_!" The pharaoh did not react. Ruby threw her skirt back down and would've stuck her tongue out spitefully if her mouth wasn't a mess. She continued along the rooftops, concluding to herself that a god was messing with her head just for the fun of it. "I wonder what happened to that book." she said as she leapt to the next roof. The rotting wood gave way and she fell through into a small, dusty attic.

"Rain falls and eventually all shelters give in." the pharaoh said, standing in the corner with the Necronomicon open in his hands, "A long time ago there was another city on this very spot. Out of fear, the people crafted idols from the stone of this swamp in tribute to The Great Old Ones. Some can still be found deep under the mud, but nothing shaped by mortals truly lasts."

"A city that died in this part of the world… why does that sound familiar?" Ruby whispered to herself.

"Your predecessor would know. Here, she enjoyed lavish parties, the latest fashions, young men fighting for her favor. Her old life, too, had limited time. Longing for it was why she let you kill her."

"I already miss trying so hard and failing so badly at making cookies," Ruby said sarcastically as she stood up, " _but nothing is ever as rosy as we remember_!" She noticed that the pharaoh had flipped the Necronomicon to a blank page, which she was sure wasn't there when she had it back on Torchwick's ship.

"Mortal minds were fashioned for short lives. Doing what you call 'ascending' does not change that." the pharaoh said as he used the dagger like a pen to write a new passage.

" _At least we're too small for you to care abou_ -" Ruby was cut off when the pharaoh was instantly much closer, leaning forward with his 'face' an inch from her.

" _Just because you are beneath my notice_ , _does not mean I cannot see you_." the pharaoh said with his voice raised. He sounded delighted rather than angry, perhaps for the purpose of scaring Ruby. It worked. Ruby stumbled and crawled backwards in panic.

"Yeah well you… you… you're ugly!" Ruby cried meekly. She then heard from the floor below that someone was pounding at the ceiling at her.

"Hey! Who's up there?! Get out of my house!" shouted someone, evidently the house's owner.

Ruby scowled and hissed as she brought out Crescent Rose. She slashed all around at the walls and floor causing the whole house to come crashing down into a pile of rubble. A moment later she popped out from the wreckage and walked off, briefly turning back to say, " _What house_?"

XXX

Pyrrha, still dressed in her soaked battle gear, was sitting along the side of a dirty old bed. She held a crude, makeshift syringe with her only hand to the stump that used to be her other arm. She frowned and listened to her own steady breathing as she hesitated. It was a very small room with a tiny square window, containing only a bed meant for just one person, open space no wider than the bed itself, and a light bulb dangling from the ceiling like a hangman. Footsteps and voices bawled from the walls, loud enough to be heard over even the harrowing rain that pounded on the roof and window. This old, dumpy wooden motel was filled to the point where the hallways had become lined with people in sleeping bags. Yang Xiao Long, dressed in an orange tank top and black shorts, came into the room and shut the door behind her with her back to it. Although the bed was meant for one person, the girls were forced to share it due to the lack of space, though at least they actually had a room, courtesy of getting here before everyone else.

"Egad!" Yang said, sounding awfully tired, "It's gonna be a pain trying to sleep with all this-" She suddenly became more aware of Pyrrha and what she had in her hand. Yang leaned forward to get a better look at the substance within the glass. "Pyrrha, is that the wonder-drug that's been going around town?" she asked.

"Sure is." Pyrrha said jadedly, still holding the tip of the needle to her stump arm, "There was someone reselling them for triple the price at the motel entrance. I bought one."

Yang lightly touched Pyrrha's hand to make her lower the syringe and set it down on the bed. "We can only guess what goes into that stuff." Yang said adversely, "If it were me, I wouldn't trust what I don't yet understand."

"Yes, that's been a bad trend as of late, but you might feel differently if it were you missing an arm." Pyrrha said with a shrug, "Besides, there's still the matter of your sister and I can't do much to help the way I am."

"Hey, you're always welcome to help, but even if we had a way to find her, you don't have to do this. She's _my_ sister."

"Well she's my friend, and even if she wasn't, I can't stand by if I know I can do something about it."

"And what _can_ you do about it?"

"Erm… what could _you_?"

Yang sighed. "When I stop to think about it, nothing." she said despairingly, "I can't beat her in a fight, we don't know how to cure her, and she's too far gone to care that she was choking me to death. All I really know is that it's too important to me to give up on."

"Then nothing else needs to be said." was Pyrrha's response. She took the syringe again.

"Hmph?" Yang frowned with grim disapproval.

"Yang, you're not turning me down if 'I'll figure something out' is all you've got to work with. I'm going to help you." Pyrrha said firmly, "I'm going to help Ruby." She suddenly injected herself and discarded the syringe. For a few seconds nothing happened, then her arm grew back like a lizard growing back its tail over the course of ten seconds.

"Whoa! They weren't kidding!" Yang said in surprise, "Umm, how do you feel?"

Pyrrha felt at her regrown limb incredulously. It was silk-smooth like a baby's skin and covered in a thin coat of slime. "Pretty normal actually." she said as she made a fist.

XXX

Jaune Arc, dressed in an ugly patient gown, sat in a cushioned chair inside a containment cell. The cell's walls were made of thick glass strong enough to stop a cannon ball. Mechanical arms hung from the ceiling. Outside he could see computers, lab equipment, and people in lab coats spread throughout the room. This place was the research lab inside a large airship, which was parked on the ground along the perimeter of the town. What was left of Vale's government had been experimenting on him since they found out what he had become, though they were fairy comfortable being around him, likely because of his still-human face and that he often spoke back and forth with them in English. To them, it was like examining a sick person rather than a monster. Whether or not he looked and felt like a man made all the difference. The mechanical arms above kept giving Jaune things that were supposed to make him numb or fall asleep, but they never did anything.

"That strange phrase you keep saying, how do you spell the words?" a scientist asked Jaune.

"I don't know. Just slap your keyboard repeatedly with a fish." Jaune responded, then returned to bask in his boredom. He leaned back into his chair and made a long sigh. His senses had become so much sharper over the last few days. His hearing in particular was so enhanced that he could tell what people were saying even from other rooms he couldn't see, and so to pass the time, he often closed his eyes and just listened to random conversations. "I wonder what's on this channel." he quietly said to no one.

"-because every woman I've ever met either pretended I didn't exist, was disgusted with me, or I was disgusted with her." someone said.

"Whoever wrote the protocols is a paranoid control freak! There's so many millions of rules that you can't do anything without breaking at least a dozen of them!" said someone in another room.

"The scar on my chest? Well, my harpy of a wife goaded this strong, stupid guy into burying an axe in it so she could walk away with my life's earnings. We'd be divorced by now if these monster attacks hadn't happened, then she would have just _half_ my life's earnings." went yet another conversation.

"-you kidding me? There's only been two deaths in this town over the last year, then when all these people rush in to get that medicine there's been approximately sixty-five!" someone was shouting.

"Huh?" Jaune sat up with surprise, now paying more attention. He searched for more conversations to eavesdrop on.

"-sting marks look like they were from a giant jellyfish. No Grimm could do this, and there have been no reports of the creatures that attacked Vale being anywhere near Mistral."

"-that his head isn't just missing, it was bitten off by something, but what?"

Jaune stood up, walked forward, and put his hands on the glass. "Is something bad happening out there?" he asked.

"Hey! Step away from the glass!" someone yelled with his finger pointed at Jaune.

"Okay, okay! Fine." Jaune said, sat back down, and groaned. "Ugh. There is nothing worse than sitting here doing absolutely nothing. I'm gonna go insane." he mumbled to himself.

"Go easy on the lad. He's just trying to help." Bartholomew Oobleck said as he came into the room.

"Dr. Oobleck!" Jaune said in attention.

Oobleck stopped in front of the holding cell and folded his hands together behind his back. "Yes, Mr. Arc. How are you feeling?" he asked, looking at Jaune.

"Still adjusting." Jaune said with a shrug, "This whole thing still seems so unbelievable."

"Indeed. It doesn't seem that long ago when everything was completely normal. It hardly seems real."

Jaune looked off to the side. "You got that right…" he whispered under his breath.

"But then again, how can either of us be sure that this is real?"

"What?" Jaune made a confused look at Oobleck. "I don't think I follow…"

"It's just a silly, one-off thought." Oobleck said and began pacing back and forth, "The existence of immortal sea gods and what they do to people are just so fantastical that I can't help question if they've always existed or I myself have just gone mad."

"Well of course it's all real. We _have_ both been seeing the same things." Jaune said.

"True, but if they weren't real, you might not be either."

"Uh… even though I'm standing right here talking to you?" Jaune said slowly.

Oobleck shook his head as he continued pacing. "What you see, taste, smell, hear, and touch are all just electrical signals interpreted by the brain. The mind exclusively experiences the world through the senses, so everything we think we know are just varying levels of belief. The only thing you can be sure of is that _you_ exist. After all, to be capable of asking questions about the nature of existence, there must exist something to ask the question." he said, putting his finger onto the side of his own head, "Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am, but could everything else just be a product of my imagination?"

"Would it really matter? Whether everything is real or just a dream, it's the only 'everything' we've got."

"It's certainly still worth thinking about. Debating the very nature of reality is more important than say, deciding what type of coffee I'd like today."

"Well yeah, but we actually have the power to do something about one of those. I mean, even if something was important, why bother with it if paying attention to it would never make any difference?"

"Hahaha." Oobleck gave an intrigued nod. "So you've finally decided to contribute during one of my long, boring lectures." He chuckled and took a deep breath. "Yes, that's the most common excuse the young make for not voting, not taking interest in something like astronomy, or simply not addressing metaphysical philosophy in general. Things we know are important, but are never thought about because we know, at some gut level, that it's out of our reach."

The room became dimmer when the lights suddenly turned red and a loud alarm went off. The abrupt change in atmosphere was then succeeded by the sounds of distant shooting. "What? What's going on?!" Jaune cried in surprise. He watched as the entirety of the research staff hurried toward the exit, likely in evacuation.

"Stay here for a bit, please." Oobleck said as he transformed the thermos in his hand into his weapon, "I'm going to investigate." He headed for the exit as well, likely to find whatever was attacking the ship.

"As if I had a choice." Jaune said, folding his arms and sitting back down. That annoying alarm kept going as he remained alone for the next five minutes. His hearing was good, but if there were people talking in another room about whatever set off the alarm, he couldn't hear them over the loud ringing. He groaned as he twiddled his thumbs, then was startled when he finally became aware of a person that had been in the room staring at him for some time. "What the?! Ruby?"

"Jaune Arc." Ruby said, sounding satisfied. Her hands and face were pressed up against the glass. She wore her cape over her mouth like a scarf, but it felt as if she had a huge, creepy smile on. "Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it."

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **Those references to RWBY Chibi…**


	23. Chapter 23: Withered Rose

The dark blade of Ruby's scythe melted through the glass wall of Jaune's holding cell like a hot knife through butter as the alarm kept blaring in the background. Jaune watched in awe as a doorway-sized opening was created the way fire would burn a hole in fabric, but he hesitated to step out when he saw the unsettling, hungry look in Ruby's eyes.

"Whatcha' waiting for? A written invitation?" Ruby asked in a chipper fashion that certainly felt like 'Ruby'.

"I'm just surprised to see you." Jaune said as he studied the girl, not fearfully, but very cautiously. Slowly, he exited the cell with his guard up.

"Eh, I had to come and get you." Ruby said as she shouldered her scythe, "I just couldn't stay away," she shrugged, "thanks to someone I ate."

"Some… _one_?" Jaune repeated in confusion. He took another long, hard look at Ruby, someone once familiar, now foreign. It wasn't like she was swell the last time he had seen her, but he could feel something off about her that hadn't been there before. He didn't trust said feeling. His eyes traveled down to the evil aura surrounding Crescent Rose's blade. "That's some new blade you got there, Ruby." he said.

"You like it?" Ruby said excitedly. She sudden swung the scythe straight at Jaune's face.

"Whoa! What are you doing?!" Jaune said as he dodged backwards, barely avoiding the blade as he fell onto his back and staggered as he hurried to his feet. Apparently he had good instincts. Ruby began to chase him around the room, swinging that scythe, chopping computers and tables apart as they went.

"Stand still!" Ruby called out happily. She sounded like she was having fun. She finally sliced Jaune through the chest with a quick swipe of her blade, but it passed through him like it wasn't real. It certainly hurt like it was real though.

"Youch!" Jaune grasped where he had been cut, but there was no wound and the pain was gone in an instant. There wasn't even a tear in his patient gown. "Huh? What did you do to me?" he asked.

Ruby stroked her hand over the blade. "Trippy, huh?" she said as if admiring a toy, "It only harms the living, yet it also melts through stuff like rock and glass." She switched the weapon to its compact form and put it away.

"Uh, Ruby? Don't I qualify as 'living'?" Jaune asked, calming down only a little.

"Of course not. You and I-" Ruby suddenly cut off, grabbed a computer monitor, and threw it at the ringing alarm on the wall, smashing it apart and silencing it. " _Shut up_!" she shrieked angrily. She turned back to Jaune with a smiling, pleasant face. "Cthulhu's minions, the Star Spawn, they aren't alive or dead. Whatever they are, you and I are like that now."

"Where did you learn this? How do you know?" Jaune asked.

"Ruby Rose doesn't know. Someone else in here does." Ruby said, tapping her knuckle against her head, "Anyways, we should get going. The sooner we get away from this place…" she frowned under her scarf, "the sooner things can be… simpler." She turned toward the room's exit.

"Where are we going?"

"Away, far away." Ruby said over her shoulder.

"What for? What are we doing?" Jaune asked irritably. When he was given no answer, he continued. "Did you find something that can help us? A way to stop those monsters rampaging across Remnant?"

"There's _no_ way to stop what's happening. Not for us. All we can do is get out of the way."

"In that case, our teammates are somewhere in town, yours and mine. We should-"

Ruby spun around. "Just the two of us!" she shouted.

"What? But our friends-"

"It'll be better this way," Ruby declared firmly, "better for _them_."

"I'm not abandoning them, and if you're still you," Jaune said with his finger pointed at her, "you wouldn't either!"

"You want to protect them?" Ruby asked harshly, "You do that by staying away from them!" She grabbed Jaune by the wrist. "Now lets go!"

Jaune sighed then silently complied. They made it out of the room and into the halls when Jaune stopped to ask, "Before we go, could we pick up my stuff? It's in a box in the cargo bay."

"Can't wait to get out of that ugly patient gown?" Ruby asked before spanking Jaune on the butt.

"Bwaah! Huh?" Jaune grunted in disarray. As far as he'd seen, Ruby had never said or done anything close to being 'dirty' before.

"Hey! You two!" came a voice down the hall. Two lab personnel, one man and one woman, were fast-walking toward Ruby and Jaune. "Arc, you're not allowed out of your cell! And you, little girl. Kids aren't allowed in-" Ruby lowered her scarf with one finger, revealing a leech-like mouth. She let out a horribly loud screech, like a beast crying out in agony, as the whip-like tentacles around her mouth reached an arm's length in the scientist's direction. "Aaaaaahhh!" They both screamed and ran away.

"Oh my god!" Jaune cried as he jumped backwards away from Ruby. He put his back to the wall and was breathing hard.

"Yeah, men like gods." Ruby said as she raised the scarf again.

"What happened to your mouth?!" Jaune asked.

"Just keep walking." Ruby ordered. She continued on and Jaune reluctantly followed. For a while they didn't speak a word to each other.

"Don't lie to me Ruby." Jaune said as they came around a corner, breaking the silence, "Will that happen to me too?" He stroked his chin.

"It affects everyone differently, but…" Ruby shrugged, "pretty much."

"Oh… well, it seems to be going a lot slower for me." Jaune said without enthusiasm, "I guess I should enjoy my handsome face while it lasts."

"You could always take someone else's face."

" _Not_ funny." Jaune spoke harshly.

"Hmph. Well you're still like how I was before I laid eyes on him. You still have plenty of humanity left." Ruby paused. " _You don't need it_." she said in Miriam's voice.

"It's not like there's a way to reverse this." Jaune said solemnly, "But who knows? One could hope that life as an immortal sea mutant won't be so bad."

"Pfft. We're not immortal though." Ruby chuckled, "It may seem like we are to humans and faunus, but compared to what else is out there, we're actually really easy to kill. On top of that, we can even run out of gas. If I don't eat, I'll get weaker, slower, and my wounds will no longer regenerate."

"And… what do you eat?"

"What do _we_ eat?" Ruby corrected him. She made a long pause. "People. You might remember that Miri had a snack before you and Pyrrha fought her." she said.

"Oh… not surprising I guess." Jaune said sorrowfully. He would've been unnerved by how calmly Ruby sounded if he hadn't already grown numb to it. Come to think of it, it was also strange that Ruby somehow knew of Miri's actions despite not being there at the time.

"We can only go for a long time without eating by…" Ruby's voice trailed off as she searched for the right word, "Call it 'hibernating' if you want. Being near Cthulhu while he sleeps somehow keeps us up to snuff, like a plant under the sun."

XXX

A while later, Ruby and Jaune finally came before a thick, steel, sealed watertight door complete with a hand wheel at the center of it. It looked fairly sturdy.

"Welcome to the cargo bay." Jaune said.

Ruby grabbed the stone-like lance that was strapped to her back and aimed it at the door. "Don't blink. You're going to love this, Jaune." she said excitedly. A fiery yellow beam fired from the lance's tip and burned a large hole through the steel door like it was butter.

"Nice! That actually _was_ pretty cool." Jaune said with a nod, "Where did you get that?"

"You like this too?" Ruby said as she raised the lance up, "I found it _way_ up north off this dead alien that had no use for it. I fixed it on the way here!"

"Alien?" Jaune said with a snicker, "If that thing _was_ made by aliens, how did you pull off fixing it?" he asked doubtingly.

"There was just muck and ice inside. All I had to do was find out how to disassemble it so I could clean it out." Ruby said and then walked forward.

"Oh…" Jaune just stared in bewilderment. "You're actually serious."

Ruby twirled the lance in her hand like a baton as she walked. "I'll let you borrow it if you be a good boy." she said and then shoved it through the back side of her belt again.

Jaune made a stunning glare at her and frowned. The creature that took Weiss's face had said those exact words to him, right before they had danced together on that cruise ship. He followed after Ruby, once more untrusting. The cargo bay seemed rather small considering how big the rest of the ship was, and it showed with how boxes were stacked to the ceiling throughout most of the room. They found the strongbox containing Jaune's stuff fairly quickly though. "Could I have some privacy?" Jaune asked. For a moment Ruby just stared at him before she slowly turned around, left the room, and waited outside the door for him. Jaune then discarded the ugly garments and slippers and took his time putting his simple armor and jeans on, using this time as an opportunity to think. If that creature ate Ruby and had returned, just using her face now, would it really even matter given the current circumstances? Of course it did, because he still cared about Pyrrha.

"You done yet?" Ruby shouted into the room.

"Almost." Jaune said as he put his fingerless gloves on.

"It takes more than five minutes for _girls_ to get dressed, not guys."

"Haha, yeah." Jaune fastened his sheathed sword to his belt then headed for the doorway. He stepped out of the room to find Ruby staring at eight soldiers carrying rifles, all running toward them from down the hallway. Ruby growled like an angry wolf at them. The soldiers stopped a short ways away from Ruby and Jaune to aim their guns at them.

"Drop your weapons! Get on the ground, now!" one of the soldiers yelled.

"Okay! No problem!" Jaune dropped his sword to the floor at once. He raised his hands in surrender and was almost to his knees when Ruby grabbed his upper arm to stop him.

"You know we don't have to do what they say." Ruby said ominously. In her other hand she flipped Crescent Rose into its scythe form. The soldiers recoiled in alarm when the tip of the blade noisily clanged against the floor.

"Ruby, what are you doing?!" Jaune asked.

"The ship has been completely surrounded!" one of the soldiers said, "There is no way out but surrender for you. Come quietly or we will use force!"

"I'll take… 'force'." Ruby said with a snicker. She lunged forward.

"Stop! Don't kill them!" Jaune shouted with an arm reached out.

" _They're dead either way_!" Ruby howled in Miriam's voice. She cut through four men in one swing, all of whom shriveled up and turned to ash before they hit the ground. The remaining four screamed in terror as they opened fire. Ruby jolted and shook around from the force of the bullets riddling her, but she didn't react as if she felt it. She spun through the air with her scythe like helicopter blades and cut three more men apart. She kicked the last soldier to the ground where he crawled backwards away from her, begging to her for his life. She didn't hear him though, and she raised her scythe as if preparing to chop open a log. Jaune jumped in the way with his shield raised at the last second. The shield didn't stop the blade, instead the blade stopped on its own an inch away from the shield. " _What is this_? _The Forth_? _Fifth time you've tried to stop me from killing someone_?" Ruby asked, acting rather sassy, " _I never kept track_."

Jaune's eyes widened. The monster he and Pyrrha fought at Vale's docks. The monster he toasted with molten metal. The monster he helped blow to pieces and stuff into different steel crates. The monster he, Pyrrha, Cardin, and team CFVY fought and lost to at Beacon. "You're _not_ Ruby." Jaune said.

" _Don't know_! _Not sure anymore_!" Ruby cackled in a voice that was neither male nor female. She sent Jaune flying away with a slap then carefully reached down with her scythe to make a tiny scratch on the last soldier's cheek. He screamed as the withered skin around the cut rapidly expanded until he was another pile of dust.

"Why can't you just leave me, leave us all, alone!" Jaune said with his sword and shield raised.

"I said I'd 'leave you to your goodbyes' back at Beacon." Ruby said ecstatically, "I did. Now you're coming with me whether you want to or not!"

"But why?! What do you want with me?!"

" _It's sick of being alone_!"

For a moment they just stared at each other in silence. "I guess you don't need a good reason when you've lost your mind." Jaune muttered. He stepped back the moment Ruby stepped forward. He wasn't afraid, but he knew he wouldn't stand a chance in a fight. He turned and ran as fast as he could.

Ruby hopped after him as if pretending she were playing Jump Rope. "Jaune be nimble, Jaune be quick, Jaune fell over the candle stick! Hahahaha!" she sang. She didn't even notice that her left arm was painfully reshaping into an assemblage of vine-like tentacles, resembling a mound of black leeches that were constantly crawling around. Like with her jaw, she was stuck with it and unable to change it back.

XXX

A crowd of soldiers stood assembled in a large plain room, hoping to block off the open doorway and wide ramp that extended to the outside behind them from whatever was lurking around in the ship. The sound of boots on the metal floor, orders being barked, and radios being tinkered with rattled around. "Come in. I heard gunfire." their captain said on his helmet radio, "Respond, anyone!" Not a person in the room didn't notice that there was no response, and the growing suspense was making them all anxious.

"Whatever we're dealing with, it isn't beasts of rudimentary intelligence." Oobleck quickly said with his weapon shouldered and ready, "They snuck in instead of breaking down the front door and have expressed no interest in the populated town nearby. It could be a dangerous criminal like Roman Torchwick or, dare I mention the possibility, a covert operations group from another kingdom trying to steal our research for any number of reasons. Its value cannot be denied."

Jaune suddenly came running into the room and fumblingly stopped when every gun in the room was pointed at him. "Whoa! Whoa! Don't shoot!" Jaune shouted with his hands up.

"Stay right where you are! Don't come an inch closer!" the captain ordered.

"Uh…" Jaune nervously checked over his shoulder. "There's something bad right behind me! I really don't want to stay put!"

"Drop the sword on the ground! Now!" A warning shot was fired.

"Dammit…" Jaune ran forward anyways and the soldiers opened fire. He ran between them, then past them, and kept getting shot as he went down the ramp and out into the rainstorm. Suddenly, several of the pursuing soldiers were all sliced in half at once from behind.

" _I was keeping my cool until you guys got in the way_!" Ruby yelled in an inhuman voice. She continued after Jaune without bothering to finish off the rest of the soldiers. Oobleck, having been knocked onto his bottom, removed his glasses and checked them in disbelief of what he had just seen.

Jaune sprinted further into the dark, sprawling, slimy swamplands away from the town. The area was thick with diseased trees which rotted boughs were coated in a hideous kind of fungi. "Right. Lead her away so that no one else gets hurt." he breathed to himself.

"Why bother running away? It won't change anything!" Ruby voice echoed between the trees behind him.

"I don't want to be like you!" Jaune bellowed.

" _Neither did your friend Ruby_!" An eldritch abomination somewhat covered in Ruby's torn clothes suddenly landed onto Jaune's back, shoving his face into the mud. The creature was the size of a gorilla and had a wide range of aquatic characteristics, despite being bipedal. Its left hand was a mass of black vines that split off past the elbow into two limbs that held Crescent Rose and Myrtenaster. In its right hand, which was actually shaped like a hand, was the disintegration lance. There was a mouth, but no face. " _Like your friend_ , _I'll cut away piece after piece until there's no Jaune left_." The abomination was suddenly struck in the back by a huge fireball. It turned around to see Oobleck swing his weapon into its face like a fiery baseball bat and send it flying off of Jaune.

"On your feet, Mr. Arc." Oobleck said as he helped Jaune out of the mud.

"Dr. Oobleck?" Jaune said, "You shouldn't be here! She'll kill you!"

"I'd rather not let that thing get what it wants," Oobleck said, channeling the most fire that his weapon could muster, "and it's clearly after you."

The abomination charged at Jaune again but was shoved back by a jet of flame that blew out from the tip of Oobleck's weapon. A disintegration beam suddenly cut through the stream of fire and hit the ground in front of Oobleck, creating an explosion that knocked him onto his back. The creature came forward and lashed out at Oobleck, whom managed to evade and counter attack, using sheer grit and good technique to make up for his comparatively tenuous physical. He went for the creature's knees in an attempt to put it off balance, but it didn't even react to his blows. Jaune leapt onto the creature's back and hacked at its neck with his sword, hoping to behead it and buy time for him and Oobleck to get away from it.

" _I'll get to you in a sec_." the creature growled as it dropped the lance so it could grab Jaune and throw him aside. It swung Crescent Rose at Oobleck and chopped his weapon in two when he tried to block it. He gagged when he was impaled through the chest with Myrtenaster.

"Dr. Oobleck!" Jaune cried from where he landed in the mud.

"Hmph, I thought I'd at least last longer than this." Oobleck coughed. The creature picked him up off the ground in a choke hold and bought its face in front of his, 'staring' him down. Oobleck turned his head to look over at Jaune. "You know, Mr. Arc, whether this really is real or not, I guess I can reasonable expect that I wont be 'self-aware' in just a short moment." Jaune was lost for words. He just gritted his teeth and was about to rush forward. "No, stop!" Oobleck shouted with his hand raised, "It's like you said earlier," he said with a weak laugh, "no point in worrying about something if paying attention to it won't make any difference." The creature suddenly took Oobleck's entire head in one chomp. Bloody chunks and a pair of round glasses flew through the air.

The creature tossed the body aside and turned to see that Jaune was gone again. It let out a tremendous roar, outraged to see that this brief distraction had allowed its prey to slip away again. " _Your flesh_ … _it calls to me_! _It's enough to make a girl sick_!" it bellowed. It took a step forward like it was about to pursue him, then hesitated. " _Fine_!" it yelled in a booming voice that echoed across the dark nothingness in front of it, " _Run if you want_! _I'll just kill every last person in that stupid town if you do_!" It turned and began heading toward the washed up town. " _Including that girl you like so much_!"

XXX

To be continued…


	24. Chapter 24: The Beyond

Yang carefully strode through the motel's dark, claustrophobically narrow rotting wooden hallways, trying her best to not step on the people sleeping along the floor. She dreaded to find out just how unsanitary the motel's old bathroom would be, but you had to go when you had to go. After stepping on someone's foot four separate times, she finally made it to the bathroom door. A light shined from inside, indicating that it was occupied, but the door was partially open.

"Hello? Someone in there?" Yang whispered. When there was no response she decided to gently push it open and found someone sitting… no, leaning back on the toilet looking completely limp. The person's mouth was hung open and he remained motionless as flies buzzed all around him, some walking all over his face that was frozen in an expression of terror. " _Gwaaaaahhh_!" Yang leapt back with a scream. She stared incredulously with wide open eyes then cautiously backed away. Suddenly she realized that there was someone standing right behind her, a man with his hands partially raised in fright. "Whoa there! I swear I didn't-" She recoiled again when she got a good look at the person's face. In place of eyes were black sockets in which blood steadily flowed out from like drainage pipes.

"The things I see!" the man hissed, "The things I see!"

"Wha… what's going on?! What do you see?" Yang gasped.

"He saw them too." the man said, 'looking' at the dead man on the filthy toilet.

"The monsters that attacked Vale." Yang said as she cautiously looked around, "Did they do this? Are they here now?"

The madman didn't seem to hear her. "They didn't hurt him. It was the seeing that made the poor devil perish so." he said.

"What on earth happened to your eyes?" Yang asked as she squinted at the madman's face.

"Nothing wrong with them… it's like what the messenger said. I can see so much more, so much better. I can see things we were never meant to see! Things from beyond!"

"From beyond?" Yang repeated. For the first time she finally noticed the bloody knife in the madman's hand, and it became clear that he had gouged his own eyes out, perhaps to spare himself the fate that befell the other guy.

"They're everywhere I look! No matter what I do, I can still see them! I can see them right now!" The madman raised the knife at Yang, somehow knowing where she was.

"C'mon buddy, put that knife down." Yang said cautiously with her palms raised toward the man.

"The knife or what is to come, Yang Xiao Long." the madman hissed, "You've been in his palace!" He pointed the knife at himself. "You _know_ who I'm talking about." He suddenly rammed the dagger into his own face.

" _No_!" Yang cried as blood splattered all over her upper body. The man fell over like a puppet that had its strings cut. Yang stared down at him, utterly speechless. This batty stranger had an uncanny knowledge of whom she was and where she had been. She grunted in irritation when she realized that she had wet herself. "What was wrong with that guy?"

XXX

Pyrrha seemed to have been crying in her sleep and finally awoke when her watering eyes became too bothersome. Her eyes stung as if she were staring into the sun. She rubbed them, opened them, then was suddenly blinded by an overwhelming violet light. "Ugh! What's going on?! Where am I?!" she shouted. She squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust as they burned under this unexplained new blazing light. Slowly, gently, she started to notice movement in the sea of bright violet. It looked much like marine life swimming around.

Yang, still covered in blood, suddenly barged into the room. "Pyrrha, wake up! There's a-" She froze when she noticed Pyrrha sitting upright and scratching at her eyes.

"Yang, turn off the light!" Pyrrha cried hysterically, "Turn off the damned light!"

"What are you talking about?! It's almost pitch-dark in here!" Yang said in confusion. Skeptical that too much light could really be the problem, Yang pulled the chain on the light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The light came on but Pyrrha didn't even react or even seem to be aware of it.

"Where is it coming from? What's going on?!"

"Nothing's going on. You're still in a smelly bed inside a dusty room that's part of a lousy motel!" Yang said in a bitterly confused tone. She took a closer look at Pyrrha. The girl was sweating like she had the world's worst fever and the skin around her eyes were red from all the crying. "Well either way, you don't look so good. I'd get you some warm whole-milk, but…"

"There's something wrong with my eyes." Pyrrha wailed in despair.

Yang just blinked and stared, mindful of the two dead men in the bathroom. "Excuse me?" Slowly she finally noticed that Pyrrha was now staring out the open door at something in the hallway. Pyrrha's eyes were wide with shock and she had a look of sheer terror on her face, like she was gazing at the devil himself.

"D… do you see that?" Pyrrha said, pointing a shaky finger down the hallway. Yang put her head next to her's and tried to look for what she was seeing.

"I don't see anything." Yang said with a shake of her head.

"It knows I can see it…" Pyrrha said as her eyes followed 'its' movements, "I don't think it likes being looked at."

"Describe it to me. What do you see?"

Pyrrha slowly looked at Yang with a haunting expression. "You… you don't want to know." she whispered.

"Okay, then I don't want to know." Yang frowned. Pyrrha was the last person she'd ever imagined to be so terrified. Whatever sickness was going around sure was a doozy, but it was strange to Yang that she didn't seem to be affected by it. "Look, whatever is going on, we need to get you some help." Yang said as she stepped away, "A lot of Vale's doctors are hanging out in those ships parked outside this dumpy old town."

"No, not a doctor." Pyrrha groaned, "The man that's been selling the drug I took!"

"Drug…" Yang said with a thoughtful nod, "Yeah, that's got to be it! What if that mad-scientist guy took something off the Ascended and is using it as the main ingredient? I mean, C'mon. Regrowing limbs? It's got to be poisoning people and making them hallucinate as an aftereffect."

"I don't think I'm hallucinating, Yang." Pyrrha said as she shut her eyes so tightly that her eyelids were wobbling.

"We'll clear this up once we have a word with him." Yang said with a harsh emphasis on 'him'. She knelt down and took Ember Celica out of the duffel bag under the bed. "So then, can you walk?"

"Yes but… couldn't I just stay here?" Pyrrha said, rubbing at her watery eyes, "Even when I open my eyes, it's still so hard to see through all… _this_."

Yang cringed as she once again thought of her visit to the bathroom earlier, and decided that it was better to keep Pyrrha where she could see her. After getting out of their pajamas putting on their battle gear, the both of them headed through the motel's hallways with Yang pulling Pyrrha along by the wrist. They stepped out into the street and found it to be pitch-dark outside, save for a few lights coming out from some windows, but could easily tell that it was still pouring from the sounds of heavy rain and the fact that they were instantly drenched. It wasn't until then when it finally dawned on Yang that there were a lot less people around than before. "Huh? What the…" Hours ago these streets were packed wall-to-wall. Now, she could only see four people down the street, and they were moving toward her at full sprint as if fleeing from something. "Hey, what's going on? Why are you running?" Yang asked, waving to them.

"Are you blind?! This place is under attack!" a woman cried as she kept running, "Can't you see th-" Her whole upper body was suddenly munched out of existence and replaced by an eruption of blood.

"Holy crap!" Yang yelped as she stumbled backwards in shock, "Monsters with cloaking devices!"

Pyrrha on the other hand seemed tense instead of surprised. "I knew I wasn't hallucinating." she said.

"Tell me what you see, Pyrrha! I _do_ want to know!" Yang shouted. She flinched as the other three people were also devoured by the thing she couldn't see. The rain didn't seem to be hitting whatever it was. She brought her fists up and looked around frantically. "Where is it?!" she shouted as she turned left and right in a panic, "Where is it now?!"

"I don't know! It's hard to keep track of with all those smaller things blocking my view of it!"

"There's more? Exactly how many are there?"

"How _many_?" Pyrrha repeated shrinkingly, "We're literally at the bottom of an ocean of them! They're swimming all around us like fish but with no open space between them. They're overlapping, passing through each other… the ground, the buildings, you, me; they're moving in and out of everything!"

"Through me? Right now?" Yang made a baffled look at Pyrrha. It was rather hard to picture what she was describing.

"The smaller ones are sort of transparent, but there are others of all different shapes and sizes." Pyrrha said as she nervously gazed up at something, "Some of them are paying an awful lot of attention to me."

"But not me?" Yang asked. A loud 'chunk' noise was suddenly heard and blood splattered all over Yang again. She stumbled away until her back was against the wall of the motel. Her ears were ringing and it took her a moment to process that she had just seen something take a huge bite out of Pyrrha's upper arm.

"Argh! I just got this arm!" Pyrrha cried as something appeared to be eating her. Yang sprang forward and punched at where the creature's cheek clearly should have been, but she passed through it like it wasn't there. Pyrrha was thrown aside by her attacker and slid over the ground on her back. She brought out her weapon in its rifle form, aimed it at whatever was coming for her, and fired some shots that harmlessly hit the side of a building. She kept her gun aimed at it in vain, then transformed it to its javelin form and rammed it into her own face.

"Pyrrha, stop! What are you doing?!" Yang shouted with a hand reached out. Pyrrha screamed as she gouged her own eyes out. Yang ran over to her, but was at a loss on what to do next without medical supplies. A moment passed and nothing happened, as if whatever had been attacking Pyrrha suddenly didn't care to finish her off anymore.

"That thing. It stopped coming after me." Pyrrha said, half sobbing.

"How did you know that would work?" Yang asked, mindful of the eyeless man she had seen earlier.

"It was more of a gut feeling really. It just felt like being able to see it, or whatever was allowing me to see it, is what pissed it off."

XXX

Yang slowly walked along the street with Pyrrha's good arm thrown over her shoulders. Pyrrha now wore blood-soaked white bandages over her eyes like a blindfold, though she seemed to be taking the loss of her eyes pretty well. Yang carefully helped her step over and around the corpses scattered all over the place so that they didn't trip. For some reason, the bodies were all decaying strikingly quick. No, not decaying… _melting_. It was unsettling to Yang that seeing this much people die in such unusual ways no longer bothered her in the slightest. Considering what was happening here so close to Mistral as well as what had gone down in Vale, she wouldn't have been surprised if catastrophes had fallen upon Vacuo and Atlas too by now. "Focus Yang." she whispered to herself, "You're entire world is getting Pyrrha some help and nothing else." She and Pyrrha were at the point of shivering from how soaked they were by the time they were nearing the edge of town. This place had fallen silent and only the sounds of rainfall could be heard.

"Seems like anyone that isn't dead has already evacuated." Pyrrha said.

"Looks that way." Yang responded. She looked up and could see the headlights of an airship fly right over them.

"With any luck, there might still be a ship that hasn't taken off." Pyrrha said. She seemed to 'look' at the ship passing over them, and her face tracked it as if she could see it. She suddenly let go of Yang, stumbling at first, giving the notion that she still hadn't gotten over the shock from earlier. "I think I can walk on my own. Just run on ahead and get them to wait for me." The two of them faced each other speechlessly. "Or you could come back for me." Pyrrha added irritably. Yang watched incredulously as Pyrrha continued on and stepped around a wooden bench unaided.

"Wait a sec." Yang said as she moved in front of Pyrrha and walked backwards in pace with her, "How many fingers am I holding up?" She held her index, middle, and ring fingers up to Pyrrha's face.

"Three." Pyrrha answered instantly. She kept it up as Yang rapidly shuffled her fingers. "One. Four. Three. Four. Two." She was correct every time. Yang then held up five fingers but Pyrrha just snatched her hand instead. "This is a waste of time!" she said.

"How are you able to see without eyeballs?!" Yang asked as they came to a stop.

"I don't know. It's like I can see out of my forehead or something." Pyrrha said with a shrug, "It doesn't matter. Let's keep going!"

"Okay, okay, but we're not splitting up. I've watched enough horror movies to know that's a bad idea."

The girls continued on together, but picked up the pace. When they finally came to the edge of town, they were met with a view overlooking the start of the outside swamp where the airships should have been parked. There was only one left, and it was high up in the air.

"Wait! Don't leave without us!" Yang yelled as she waved at the ship with both hands. The airship stopped, hovered in place, and shined a light on them in acknowledgment. "Oh, phew. Looks like we're going to-" A fiery yellow beam suddenly hit the airship and cut through it like butter. The ship took a nosedive into the ground and exploded on impact. Yang and Pyrrha gave open-mouthed stares. The fires from the wreckage revealed a previously unseen monster, an 'Ascended' that seemed far more imposing than any she had seen before. It was holding Crescent Rose, Myrtenaster, and a strange lance that had fired the yellow beam. "Oh, c'mon!" Yang groaned in frustration. She turned around and grabbed Pyrrha, throwing her waist over her shoulder and ran full-speed back into the town. Instead of chasing them, the creature made a shriek sounding like a cry of agony as it stabbed and cut itself with its own weapons for whatever reason.

"That thing…" Pyrrha whispered hauntingly, "it felt like looking at _three_ people… each bent and then stuck together in the shape of a monster. Ruby…"

"What was that?!" Yang asked as she kept running.

"I see so differently now." Pyrrha said as she brushed a hand over her bandage-blindfold, "I look at you, and I see a yellow fire in the shape of what I remember you to look like."

"And with that thing back there?"

"Lively red petals… a soothing black fog… and…" Pyrrha paused and thought about how to describe it, "the third one was like a cesspit or… dozens of rotting chunks squeezed together."

Yang shook her head and just kept running. She had given up on trying to understand 'how' and just accepted that Pyrrha could now see a person's semblance with her forehead. There mere suggestion that Ruby and Blake were part of that thing they saw… Yang just didn't want to think about that right now. Her only concern should be to get to safety, but was there even such thing anymore? It seemed like life had become nothing more than a constant cycle of running away to buy an extra day or two. "Whoa!" Yang tripped and fell on her face as Pyrrha rolled over the ground in front of her. Yang planted her palm onto the ground to get up and felt herself touch something cushiony and jelly-like. "Ugh. Am I touching someone's boob?" she groaned. She sat up and stared down at the strange dark-orange fleshy substance she had touched. It looked a lot like those leathery plants she saw in R'lyeh, the ones that turned out to be recycled flesh. She looked around and noticed that she had stumbled into the town square. The disgusting gooey stuff was growing everywhere, covering the streets, buildings, and what remained of the many tents that used to be here like a fungus, and it was spreading out quickly. Then, it dawned on Yang that this was what had become of the melting corpses she saw earlier. She could even make out a few faces in the coat of goo blanketing this part of town. "Alright, so the invisible monsters can do that to people. Okay." she said frustratedly.

"This stuff is still…" Pyrrha said, standing up and staring straight down, "I can see thoughts, hopes, fears of so many people flowing through it."

"Hmm, it doesn't seem dangerous to touch though." Yang said as she inspected her palm, "Weird, but it makes no difference to us." She walked up to Pyrrha and grabbed her wrist. "Let's get out of here! Maybe there's still a ship on the other side of town or something."

"You'd find they've all gone. The two of you were late to the party." said a new deep voice.

"Eh?" Yang looked around and noticed a man leisurely sitting along the rim of a stone fountain that was no longer spewing any water, using the rim as a bench. In his hand was a book, and he seemed to be writing in it with a black-green chisel. The man was bald, had a thick black beard accenting his jaw, had broad shoulders, and looked to be around the old age of fifty. He was wearing black, round glasses and a timeworn business suit. It was strange. Yang could have sworn her that gaze had passed over that fountain a moment ago and there had been no one there. "Umm, bro?" she said to the peculiar stranger, "If you haven't noticed, you're in the middle of a soup made out of dead people."

"Not 'dead', Ms. Xiao Long." the stranger said in a refined manner, "The beings responsible alter the genetic code of their prey to assimilate them alive, but a mess is to be expected from their first interaction with humans."

"Yang, who are you talking to?" Pyrrha said, looking around everywhere.

"That guy, of course." Yang said and pointed straight at the stranger.

Pyrrha shook her head and added, "I don't see anything there but… I can hear someone."

"Eh?" The look on Yang's face went from mystified to aghast as she watched the stranger shut the book and stand up, "You… you're the showman that was selling those bizarre drugs." Yang said guardedly, "What did you put in those things?! What did they do to everyone?!"

"They performed just as advertised." the stranger said with a creepy toothed smile, "I didn't fail to mention that my product would enhance the senses."

"'Enhance' the senses?" Pyrrha cried angrily, "There's no way that explains what I've been seeing! That bright violet light? That ocean of alien sea creatures? Seeing people's semblances? There's 'enhanced senses', and then there's… _this_!"

"There are the five senses you're familiar with, and there are the thousand dormant senses awoken in you by the serum, many of which reside in a third eye near the forehead known to some as the pineal gland." the stranger said as he slowly walked toward the girls, "With them, you perceive planes of existence outside the scope of what your kind accepts as reality," he shrugged, "as well as ultraviolet."

"So she's… _not_ sick? She's just _too_ well?" Yang said in confusion, "But those invisible things-" She cut off when she recognized the book in the stranger's hand to be the Necronomicon.

"Heh, a human's native means of receiving impressions are absurdly few." the stranger continued as he paced back and forth, "Your kind can only see things as you are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses your kind pretends to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, different ranges of senses can observe whole worlds of matter, energy, and life that are always close at hand, yet normally can never be detected by you. The serum gave but a frivolous taste of what is beyond."

Yang just glared in response. "Who are you?" she asked squeamishly, "What pit of hell did you crawl out of?"

"Crawl?" the stranger chuckled, "A choice of words that amuses me." The Ascended that used to be Ruby roared at Yang and Pyrrha's backs. The girls jumped in surprise and spun around to see it standing at the foot of where the dark-orange sludge began. The stranger calmly walked forward, passing between the girls, and stopped in front of the creature. The creature backed away with a hand raised the way someone would shield their face from a blinding light.

"This thing… it's afraid of that man." Pyrrha said with a grimace.

"Yeah… I called him 'bro'." Yang muttered.

The stranger turned to face the girls, opened the book up, and began reading from it in a horrible language so unpleasant that it literally caused blood to leak out of Yang and Pyrrha's ears as they covered them in screaming agony. The book suddenly exploded to life, and the symbols on the pages moved like they were hungry. The stranger raised a hand and the creature beside him raised the limb holding Crescent Rose in sync, like a puppet he was manipulating. The stranger brought his hand down and Crescent Rose's black blade chopped right into the dark-orange sludge that was permeating this place. Like with the people it had cut, the substance dried up around where the black blade made contact and rapidly expanded outward until it was nothing more than a shriveled prune that quickly turned into dust. A huge storm of mist-like wind… souls… came howling out of the ash around them and was sucked into the Necronomicon, then the sky above them seemed to suddenly rip open revealing another realm defined by a dark-red lighting that illuminated the entire town like a red sun at dusk. Countless indescribable things came pouring out, swimming through the air like it was water.

"Those things coming out of that… portal," Pyrrha said incredulously, "they're… those are…"

"Not a portal. It's more accurate to call it a filter that changes how these beings interact with the plane of existence you're more familiar with." the stranger explained in a speed that would have made Oobleck jealous, "The both of you can now see them, and they can see you. The only way for you to hide from them is to become like her," the stranger said with a hand raised toward 'Ruby', "or become part of her. Speaking of which…" He flicked a finger toward Yang and Pyrrha and the Ascended charged at them like a dog that had been ordered to sick 'em. "Have no fear, ladies, but understand that there can be no bravery," the stranger said with his arms raised, as if making a declaration, "without madness."

XXX

To be continued…


	25. Chapter 25: Darkest Days

**Happy Michael Myers day! (10/31)**

* * *

"No thank you!" Yang yelled as she fired a slug from Ember Celica at the stranger's face, but it passed through him like he was a hallucination, "I'm just fine with staying human!"

"Oh darling, it's not even a relevant species." the stranger said with a patronizing laugh, "There are scores of emerging life on other worlds more complex." He glanced at what used to be Ruby. "Your malleable biology, such as it is, stands alone as anything even remotely noteworthy.

The monster came charging at Pyrrha, swatting Yang out of the way and sending her smashing through a brick wall, and kept going after Pyrrha, evidently intent on killing only her. Pyrrha, still marred and immobile from earlier, could do nothing as she was stabbed over and over again with Myrtenaster, Yang suddenly came back and tackled the creature off of her.

"I won't let you take any more of my friends!" Yang cried as her semblance exploded to life in her anger. She struck the creature with an uppercut, hitting it so hard that it let go of all three of its weapons and was launched into the air. As if uninterested, the creature didn't react as Yang then jumped up and punched it again, sending it straight into the ground below and causing the concrete to crack apart. The creature got up, staring down Yang as she landed. Perhaps deciding that she was becoming a nuisance, it rushed forward and brought its arm down like a hammer. Yang took it straight to the face and she was smashed onto her back like a huge boulder had been dropped on her from above, but when the creature raised its arm, she sprang right back up and kept going with even stronger punches. Now fed up, the creature delivered a blow to the torso, this time with some actual effort. Yang flew backwards, bouncing over the concrete ground several times before smashing through a stone wall, but she got up and just ran back in complete disregard of her injuries. With her hair burning bright like the sun, she punched the creature with so much force that the buildings behind it were knocked over and reduced to rubble by the massive shockwave. She had the power to draw additional strength from the damage she took, and her wounds had already reached the point of becoming fatal. The creature was blown away like a watermelon hit by a shotgun blast, but then it instantly pulled itself back together in midair.

"I… feel… g… o… o… d…" the creature groaned in Ruby's voice, "It hurts… it hurts… I am… H… A… P… P… Y… it's not right, not right…" It landed with a crash, lunged forward, then clashed with Yang again, resulting in them pushing against each other in a mutual test of strength. The two wrestled in place but it was clear that the creature was still easily the more powerful. Yang had never endured anywhere near this much damage in her life, but no matter how much of the creature's strength she turned against it, it just kept drawing even more out of a seemingly limitless pool.

"Sis, Blake, I _will_ end your suffering! I will! I will!" Yang shouted as blood seeped between her teeth. The creature roared before severely tightening its grip. Yang let out a cry of pain and fell to her knees as she felt her hands being crushed into pancakes. A fiery beam suddenly hit the creature from the side, burning a huge hole through it that didn't immediately heal. It turned its 'head' to see Pyrrha lying in a pool of her own blood, pointing the stone-like lance at it. It roared, let go of Yang, and went for Pyrrha instead. Yang stared into her bloody, shaking palms and watched as Ember Celica crumbled apart, falling off her deformed hands and onto the ground. "Dammit, not like this… not this easily…" Yang croaked as she tried to get up. She watched as the creature tore through the heaps of metal Pyrrha threw at it with her semblance. A second hole was burned through its chest, and it roared in outrage as it slowly drew closer to Pyrrha. Running out of stuff to throw at it, Pyrrha launched her javelin forward only for it to be swatted upward, causing it to flip through the air before plunging into the ground like 'the sword in the stone' right next to Yang. The beam-lance was dropped with a clang as the creature grabbed Pyrrha with one of its appendages by the neck in a chokehold, which was then suddenly sliced off by Yang using Pyrrha's javelin like it were a sword.

The creature let out a deafening roar, and Yang responded with a sobbing war cry of her own to show that she still wasn't backing down. The creature swung its other appendage, which Yang dodged and ducked around before counter attacking again and again, until a part of its hide suddenly hardened and Pyrrha's weapon shattered to pieces against it. All determination drained from Yang's face as red metal shards rained down from her sight, and she fell on all-fours in defeat. Perhaps thinking it was finished with her, the creature turned its attention back to Pyrrha, but Yang sprang up and stabbed it yet again with a now-broken blade. The creature turned back at Yang and impaled her through the stomach with the beam-lance it still held. It raised her up, holding the lance vertically with Yang crowning the top of it.

" _AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH_!" Yang screamed with fury, chopping away at the creature's face again and again and again with the broken javelin, wailing madly like she was a psychopath herself, until suddenly its head rolled off and landed on the ground. The creature let go of the lance and dropped Yang to the ground as it stumbled backward.

"Hmph. The lot of you are beginning to bore me." the stranger grunted with a hand to his face, "I can't be mad at you though. I've driven more families to kill each other than you could imagine." The creature grabbed its own head, put it back on its shoulders, and just like that, all of Yang's efforts had been rendered meaningless. It turned back at Yang and shambled toward her.

"Look at you! I'm your sister!" Yang croaked with her mouth filled with blood, "Look what's happened to you, Ruby!" Not seeming to hear her, the creature stood over her and pulled the lance out from her torso.

" _Moment in life that caused her to break from reality_! _State of arrested development_! _What made her like this, doctor_?! _Hahaha_!" the creature laughed. It raised the lance then brought it down, driving the tip straight at Yang's face for the kill.

"Enough!" Jaune shouted, coming out of nowhere and running into the creature. He didn't tackle it. He didn't attack it in any way. He hugged it. The creature just froze and stared down at him. Jaune let go and looked over his shoulder at Yang, whom was bleeding out. "Nothing anyone could say would get through to Ruby, cause she can't hear us." he said and looked back at the creature, "Right? There's someone else behind those eyes… erm… face?" The creature grumbled in response. "Yeah, let's go with fa…" Jaune trailed off, then remained silent for a moment. He sighed. "Look, I know you're tired of all this. You let my friend kill you because you wanted to move on so badly, but something in your gut just wouldn't let you, and then you just sort of surfaced again."

"It hurts… hurts… hurts… Jaune… I feel g… o… o… d… _I hate it_!" the creature hissed.

"I know." Jaune said and stroked his hand along the creature's face to comfort it, "Thanks to that freaky hive mind stuff, I can feel what you feel; makes it easier to piece together why you're so crazy about me." He shook his head. "Not that I'm bad looking but… I just remind you of someone else, don't I? That's all there is to it. Someone you had also danced with and… 'shagged it up' with." He made an awkward grimace. "You see your old life when you look at me."

The creature seemed to be breathing hard in response, reminiscent of hyperventilating. " _Not Miri_ … _not Ruby_ … _not anyone now_! _No one_!" it shrieked.

"Yeah, you're a confused mix of different people and you can't think straight now."

The creature's hyperventilating sounded more and more like sobbing, and then became an enraged growl before it lunged at Jaune violently. Perhaps having seen it coming, Jaune caught the creature's arms and stood his ground against it, remaining calm and focused as it tore at his flesh and took bites out of him. He grabbed the creature's head and upper body with both hands and pulled with all the strength he could muster. The creature roared as it tried to resist.

"I could use a little help here!" Jaune shouted, "I know you two are watching!" He made a fierce, determined look as he wrestled with the creature as an equal. "Ruby, Blake!" he cried as the creature started to gain the upper hand.

Pyrrha watched with confusion from where she sat. At first she had assumed Jaune meant her and Yang, which was absurd given their wounds, but to hear that he was calling for Ruby and Blake seemed even more ridiculous. She then realized that Jaune was ripping off the portion of the creature she had once described as a cesspit. The rest of the creature, which brimmed with the essence of red petals and black fog, seemed to assist Jaune in forcing it out. The creature screamed an unearthly sound akin to a death-cry as Jaune tore off the 'cesspit' portion and threw it to the ground, where it squirmed like a fish out of water and hissed like a snake set on fire, until it fell motionless. The other half of it just flopped backward and reacted as if it had just barfed. Jaune turned his attention to Pyrrha, calling out her name as he ran over to her.

For a few moments there was only rain and the sounds of the creatures above, which all seemed to ignore the town below and were heading in the direction of the city of Mistral. Slowly, the disgusting mound of flesh that made up the still-living half of the creature crawled over to Yang. The girl with golden hair lay there battered, stabbed, and broken, having taken on something she never stood a chance against and refused to give up. The creature reached over with one of its appendages and just… touched her hand.

"Ruby? That's you now, right?" Yang choked out, unable to even raise her head, "You're better now…"

" _You think I can't go crazy on my own_?! _That it must be someone else's fault_?" the creature babbled as it grabbed the top of itself and clawed for non-existent hair to pull on, " _No less crazy_! _Not any better_!"

"You're not as confused."

" _More afraid_ … _don't want to be_ alone! She didn't… I don't either… I'm afraid, Yang."

Yang suddenly gripped the creature's appendage tightly and pulled herself upright in an astounding show of resolve. "Then don't you dare leave me behind!" she shouted fiercely, "Wherever you're going, promise me you'll take me with you!" Pushing herself this way took its toll, and she fell forward as life faded from her eyes. "Let me… be your…" The creature caught her in its arms…

…

…

…

 _But things in life will rearrange._

 _Friends come and go._

 _Don't ever doubt, don't ever fear,_

 _I'm always here and you know._

 _I will cling, I will clutch,_

 _I'll hold onto you, I won't turn away._

 _I won't leave, I won't go,_

 _I will stay with you all our days…_

Ruby Rose, with her ordinary attire, innocent face, and silver eyes, slowly stood up and stared down at a puddle of blood half mixed in rainwater. "Just like that…" Raindrops fell and ripples echoed through the puddle. "A weak sendoff and everything keeps going like it wasn't worth thinking about." Yang's body was neither on the ground nor in Ruby's arms. Like Blake, she was nowhere. There was also… "Oobleck!" Ruby cried in realization, "He was good, he was wise, and I _killed_ him!" With her head oddly clear for the first time in what felt like ages, other names came to mind. Velvet, Winter, even Mercury and Emerald, all pointlessly killed off… because they were just insignificant mortals. "It's all my fault." Ruby said despondently, "I'm running out of people that mean anything to me." The stranger suddenly grabbed her arm tightly. She turned her head to face him, startled.

"The meaning of a human life is what you choose to give it, and you are too sentimental for your own good." the stranger said, sounding rather benign.

"Yeah well, we all got people that matter to us!" Ruby yelled back and tugged her arm away.

"Oh, I'm not talking about you. I was talking about your kind." the stranger said with a smirk, "Your minds, while already fragile, cannot handle these emotions that at least do not burden lesser beings. A cockroach cannot morn the loss of its brother. Cthulhu would acknowledge the loss of his offspring, but would not be pained by it."

"Just leave me alone!" Ruby yelled before looking away, "It takes a puny human to understand a puny human. What Yang was to me can't be explained by a science."

"Yes, the stars will weep for her." the stranger said, actually _sounding_ sincere, "Just kidding. I'd have forgotten her name already if I wasn't all-knowing."

Ruby gritted her teeth. Were it not for this 'guy', whatever he was, things for her would be just bad instead of horrendous. She walked over to where she had dropped Crescent Rose, intending to reclaim it, but hesitated when she saw the black blade. "I should never have touched that stupid book…" she muttered.

"You, the human, should have left it behind." the stranger said, "But you, the adventurer, chose to penetrate the unknown."

Ruby spun around with her scythe and sliced the stranger clean in half. He fell apart, revealing the pharaoh underneath as if shedding a costume or a shell. Ruby had no doubt that it wouldn't have happened if he didn't want it to. "Damn it… am I stuck with this guy forever?" she huffed as she put the scythe on her back. She didn't care what this guy was, but what did he want? After all this time, she still knew so little about him, only that he had yet to speak in the form of a question.

"The truth can be worse than not knowing." the pharaoh said, evidently reading her thoughts.

"Whatever you're trying to say, I don't want to hear it." Ruby said with a harsh glare, "All I really want to know is how to get rid of you!"

"Very well. Lets play a simple game then. Just guess my name and I will leave you be."

Ruby squinted at the pharaoh, but as always, there was no facial expression for her to read. "Okay not-Rumpelstiltskin." she said dubiously, "This isn't like those unwinnable bets the grim reaper is supposed to make with people, right? Do you even have a name?"

"Find relief when I say that countless others, on this world and on others, know it." the pharaoh said in an eerily friendly tone, "I'm in a generous mood today, so I'm making it easy for you. I wont even give you a time limit," he raised his index finger, "but you have only one guess."

Ruby just stared back with a stupefied look. She didn't have the faintest idea what this thing was called, but she was _not_ going to squander a chance to be free of it. Her mind ran through every word she could remember it saying to her, searching for any clue that it might have dropped. She had nothing to go off of. "Could you… uh… give me a hint?" she asked nervously.

For the first time, contrary to everything that came before, it actually felt like the pharaoh's expression drastically changed, like he was suddenly very exited. "I'd love to." he said menacingly.

"No wait! I changed my mind!" Ruby cried with immediate regret. The pharaoh spread his arms out and everything around them became warped. The two of them were suddenly out in the vacuum of space, but Ruby could still breath and she remained standing on ground she could not see. An illusion? Magic? Something there were no words for? "This your idea of a hint?" she whispered. To her left she could see a planet, her world, Remnant, appearing as a big mostly-blue and somewhat-green ball. It was so big that any evidence of it's countless inhabitants could not even be seen from all the way out here. "I don't quite follow." she said.

"You will soon." the pharaoh said. Everything quickly became smaller… no, their view was zooming out.

"Why are you showing me this?" Ruby asked. Now, she could see the solar system with its massive sun at the center. She knew there were planets orbiting around it, but they were so small and so far away from each other that she could no longer even see them. "Never mind. I don't want an answer." she added. The view zoomed out even more, reaching the point where the stars no longer appeared as balls of fire, and became a solid stream of light that made up the massive swirl that was the galaxy. More than one-hundred-billion stars made it up, but from here they seemed like glowing particles of water in a steam cloud. _Still_ not finished, the view zoomed out even further and further until the massive galaxy was just a spec in a sea of empty blackness, then suddenly an uncountable amount of other tiny galaxies, coming in a wide range of different shapes and colors, came into view. There were so many, even more than there were stars in any single one of them. Each was bigger than she could imagine, yes so small and insignificant from this perspective. Despite the unbelievable distance between them, each was like a tiny grain of sand that made up a desert that stretched on forever. "Stop it! It's too much!" Ruby cried, falling to her knees and clutching her head in agony.

"You've only begun to see." the pharaoh said, raising his arms as if making a declaration. The view continued to zoom out.

"No more! I don't want any hints!" Ruby screamed. She turned her head, but she could still see it. She closed her eyes, but she could still see it. The entire universe, made up of so many galaxies that a new number would have to be invented, became nothing more than a dot, then it was no longer even _visible_. The view still continued to zoom out even further with everything remaining completely black for some time, until something _new_ came into view. To the right, Ruby could see a fleshy wall of… something… far away from the universe she knew. It was formless, moving, alive. The view zoomed more, revealing this 'wall' to be just one side of a massive creature, which could only be described as a big ball of eyes, teeth, and tentacles. From it echoed an elegant but twisted music-like sound.

"I told you before that I am a servant." the pharaoh said.

"Of… that?!" Ruby said, completely overwhelmed by the sight.

" _Him_?" the pharaoh said with great amusement, "No, not this one!" Yet again their view zoomed out tremendously, to the point where this monster, which made the whole universe look like a single-celled organism, now seemed tiny. From this perspective Ruby could see more… _many more_ beings of equal size, though no two looked anything alike.

"Aaaa _aaaahhhh_!" Ruby shrieked in horror, unable to blink or look away for one reason or another. Now, she could see the whole picture. There were trillions of these ridiculously huge beings orbiting around a far, _**far**_ greater monstrosity that easily put the rest to shame, like ants swarming around an elephant, ants that were ceremoniously playing a bizarre music that was, for a welcome change of pace, not maddening, but soothing in a way that made Ruby feel sleepy. The mere sight of the _**thing**_ in the nucleus kept her astir however.

"Should they stop playing for only a moment, my master Azathoth would awaken!" the pharaoh proudly proclaimed, "Everything would immediately end, for all of existence is his dream!"

At that moment, it was like Ruby's mind had been completely eviscerated, and so soon after recovering from seeing Cthulhu. Her mind was destroyed again, light-years worse than last time.

"Gaze upon him, mortal!" the pharaoh bellowed, "Gaze upon him and despair!"

Ruby cried out so loud that her lungs popped as tears of blood flooded from her eyes. _This amorphous blight of nethermost confusion, blaspheming and bubbling at the center of all infinity_ … _the boundless daemon sultan whom gnawed hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled rhythm of a vile, accursed tune_. It was too much for a mortal. Too much for a mortal, and things so far beyond mortals that Ruby couldn't even begin to imagine them. All she could think about was ending her own suffering.

"Don't look at it, Ruby!" shouted a new voice.

Ruby suddenly felt someone in front of her hug her tightly. "What?!"

"I'm here sis." Yang said warmly, holding Ruby against herself, "I'll always be here…"

"Y… Yang?" Ruby gasped in disbelief.

"Let me be your strength." Yang whispered. The cold, empty blackness they were in became filled with a warm light. _Don't you worry about the dark, I will light up the night with the love in my heart, I will burn like the sun, I will keep you safe and warm_.

"I wish…" Ruby sniveled, "I wish things were how they once were. I miss… all our days…"

"Shhh… just focus on us." Blake said as she joined in, hugging her as well.

"Yang… Blake…" At that moment, Ruby forgot all about that horrible thing Yang and Blake were shielding her from. Being with her friends, no matter how unimportant they were, would always mean more to her than the biggest supreme being. With a deep, sobbing breath she smiled and cried _real_ tears.

XXX

"You begin to tire me, Ruby Rose, so I will give you a more obvious hint." the pharaoh said.

"No need." Ruby said calmly, sitting on her knees. Yang and Blake were gone, but she was back in this dumpy village in the middle of Mistral's swamps again. Slowly, she stood up and walked over to that disgusting mound of flesh that Jaune pulled off of her earlier. She picked it up with one hand, fusing with it, and searched through what it knew. The pharaoh, whom wielded the promise of knowledge that, when revealed, only brought fear, terror, and apprehension… "Nyarlathotep," Ruby said, "You are Nyarlathotep, the messenger of the Outer Gods." She disconnected herself from Miriam and dropped her onto the ground.

Nyarlathotep clasped his hands together as if pleased. "You can see I was not lying, when I described this game to be simple and easy." he said sounding friendly, "Hei! Aa-shanta 'nygh! Treasure your humanity while it lasts and pray to all space that you may never meet me in my thousand other forms. Farewell, Ruby Rose, and beware, for I am the Crawling Chaos." At last, he turned his shoulder and was suddenly gone. He didn't vanish. It was more like realizing that he was never there in the first place, if that made any sense.

"Never been more happy to say goodbye to someone." Ruby said with a sigh of relief. She had forgotten what it felt like to relax. Considering who that nefarious being was and what he could do, her time around him could have been so much worse than it was. Ruby had a feeling that he had gone easy on her, either because he enjoyed her company or he wanted to torment her very slowly.

"Ruby, are you… good now?" Jaune shouted over to Ruby, approaching with Pyrrha limping beside him with her arm over his shoulder.

"I'm doing better." Ruby said with an easygoing tone.

"It's not like we could stop you if you were faking again." Pyrrha said. She turned her blind-folded head upward at the portal that had been opened above the town. The creatures coming out were all headed off into the distance in the same direction. "So uh… why are those things ignoring us?" Pyrrha asked, "I thought we were done when I saw them rain from the sky."

Ruby looked up at the portal as well. "They didn't notice you or Yang because there's a whole city of food next door." she said.

"You're talking about Mistral!" Jaune said in alarm, "Can't we doing something about that?"

"Not fast enough," Ruby said and shook her head, "If that portal doesn't close on its own, those creatures will keep pouring out forever. All anyone can do now is run away."

"Is there any way to close it?" Jaune asked.

"Not that I know of." Ruby replied.

"Know anyone that could tell us?"

"Just the guy that opened it."

"What about that nega-bible he read from?"

"He took it with him. Besides, nothing good can come from it."

Jaune stared at Ruby for a while. "Are you really back, Ruby? You're so calm about this." he said with concern.

"I am?" Ruby's gaze fell to the ground and she gave a subtle nod. She wasn't bottling up her emotions like before. She wasn't even numb. She felt sad, incredibly sad, but she was by no means debilitated by that sadness. Somehow it seemed easy to keep a level head without needing to shut anything out. "I don't feel calm at all." she said.

"I would've thought you'd show more concern for a whole kingdom." Jaune said sharply.

"Do you want me to overreact or something?" Ruby asked with irritation, "Look, I don't like it either, but those things are going to eat not just every human and faunus, but every living thing on the entire continent," she said with a wary shrug, "not that Cthulhu wasn't already going to do that. On the plus side, those creatures can't survive being outside their natural environment for very long, so they probably can't reach the other landmasses. All Mistral's people have to do is leave," she looked directly at Pyrrha, "and when that happens…"

"Say no more." Pyrrha said with her free hand making a 'stop' motion, "You're going to suggest making me like you and Jaune."

"It has its ups and downs." Ruby reluctantly admitted, "You don't age, you don't get sick, you're way tougher, 'Cthulhu and friends' won't outright kill you, but you have to keep a steady supply of humanity." She couldn't believe she was saying this, but ascending just didn't seem so bad now that she saw the bigger picture. "Do you remember those monsters that attacked Vale? That's what it looks like when you run out."

"I remember you from only a few minutes ago." Pyrrha murmured.

"You don't need to decide today." Ruby said, then looked to Jaune, "Jaune, just take her far away from here, where she'd be safe either way… erm, saf _er_."

"What are you talking about?" Jaune said in disappointment, "You want to split up already?"

"There's something I gotta' do." Ruby murmured stubbornly. She walked over to where Myrtenaster lay on the ground and fell to her knees before it. Slowly, respectfully, she reached down to take Weiss's weapon with one hand below the handle and the other below the end of the blade. She stared down at it for a while. "It won't take long. I promise." She looked back at Jaune and Pyrrha. "Jaune, I can find you again no matter where you go. Just head to Vacuo if it's still there or whatever."

"What's wrong with Atlas?" Jaune asked.

"It's _gone_."

Jaune made an expression of shock, then looked crushed. "Oh… I see."

Ruby fastened Myrtenaster to her belt. "No use in thinking about how bad things have gotten or what's on the 'bright side'." she said candidly, "Things are the way they are for better or worse, and we're still around to choose what we want to do in the middle of it all."

"Caring too much is just part of what makes us human, Ruby. It's a double-edged sword." Jaune said.

Ruby grinned before saying, "Yeah… it has its ups and downs."

Pyrrha tugged on Jaune's arm. "C'mon. We better get going." she said, wary of what was still above them.

"Just be careful about getting too 'close' to each other." Ruby said, fiddling her index fingers together, "You see, if the two of you were to 'do it', it would infect Pyrrha and make her one of the Ascended." She shrugged awkwardly. "I mean, nothing bad would happen if Jaune and _I_ 'did it' but…" She noted the bewildered look on Jaune's face. "Argh, I'm gonna stop talking now."

"Ruby, how do you know all this stuff?" Pyrrha asked.

Ruby shrugged. "Just someone I ate and puked out…" She stepped away from her friends and walked over to the beam lance. It had broken in half when Yang had been stabbed with it. It was useless now, so Ruby left it where it was. She brought out Crescent Rose, switched it to its scythe form, and inspected it. Even though the pharaoh had gone, the blade was still as it was, cold, pitch-dark midnight remade into metal. From the look of things, it was her's to keep. She didn't want it, but she didn't feel right about dropping it on the ground where anything could pick it up, so she switched her weapon back to its compact form and put it away. She looked down at her belt and eyed Myrtenaster one more time.

" _The meaning of a human life is what you choose to give it_. _You are too sentimental_." Nyarlathotep had said to her.

"We all got people that matter to us." Ruby whispered, as she was filled with determination. After all she had been through, it was amazing how focused she felt… not to say that she could take on the eldritch abominations out there, she couldn't, but she at least felt like she could finally live with knowing that they were out there. Thankfully, she could not remember what the pharaoh had shown her, only that she had seen it. "I don't care if mankind isn't anything special." she said fervidly, "Even in death, my friends will always matter to me more than the most terrible monsters."

XXX

To be continued…

* * *

 **The thing about writing a story is that it becomes more and more difficult to do** _ **properly**_ **the longer it gets. It's not that you get a creative burnout, but that the range of ideas that would fit keeps getting more and more narrow. It's part of why so many stories on this website go unfinished.**

 **I'm spent, this is a good stopping point, and I got things I need to do. Taking another break.**

 **Edit: Or this will be yet another one forever doomed to remain incomplete…**


End file.
